Bringing in the Sheaves by Rev Richard Coles - Reviewed

It took me a couple of chapters to work out that Richard Coles was going through the year in his book Bringing in the Sheaves: Wheat and Chaff from My Years as a Priest. To be honest I have to admit part of the reason it took the first three chapters was he starts with Petertide rather than advent or January. As with a lot of things in this book there is reason for this and explanation given, (for the strange churchy words as well as the structure). The structure of the book is this version of the liturgical year – with hatching, matching and dispatching, thrown in there too.

It also took me a few chapters to get a hang of what type of book this was. The style of writing is quite different to his first volume of his autobiography Fathomless Riches or How I Went from Pop to Pulpit. Where as that is based around anecdote and self-reflection with a bit of education mixed in this is a much more focused book. It has the clear purpose of raising religious literacy amongst its readers whilst giving the stories and titbits of gossip which keep it interesting for those whose tastes might generally be a bit more low brow.

Besides an unpacking of the meaning of different parts of the church year and the anecdotes there is also a rich seam of history running through this book. Coles looks at the lives of a range of saints too and demonstrates his pure passion for as well as in-depth knowledge for church history.

Having read the first books reflections on his time at Mirfield I was surprised that it got mentioned so often in this volume, as somewhere he had chosen to revisit.

He is still the wonderful camp guy making the point that he is determined to be open about his sexuality, yet he is also the happily “married” (legally civil partnered) guy who shares his life with the man he loves and their dogs.

The broadcasting career is in there but more interesting are his anecdotes relating to “ordinary” folk he comes across in the course of his ministry which has been to the very rich, the very poor and the standardly middle class.

So is it worth the read? Definitely but be prepared that this is much more Guardian Review than the Saturday Guardian Guide in style.

It is touching in places, particularly when he talks of his dad’s Parkinson’s, hilarious in others and overall enlightening. You learn lots without feeling that you are being hit over the head with it.

The overall feeling of this book is it is the one which Coles wanted to write. The one which enables him to write a theology book for the masses. Thus the biggest feeling I came away with was this guy has integrity. He’s not playing games, he’s writing the book he wants to. He is not worried it’s probably too faith based for some people outside the church and too honest for some in it. That’s what makes it so good, in my opinion – it’s an honest book written by a clever bloke who got famous through low culture but really has a heart for high culture.

 Note: I have also posted this on my Learning from Hagar blog

BLF 5 - Final Review - Ahlberg, Coles & Maconie

Saturday saw the end of the Birmingham Literature Festival2015, with the final event being Stuart Maconie in the Studio Theatre talking about The Pie at Night.

Maconie, author and BBC Six Music presenter, gave a short stand up performance based on his book before moving into the q&a section. What I really liked about the evening and about Maconie’s style is the way he essentially takes ethnography and the anthropological approach and turns it into something fun rather than academic. He is an intelligent interpreter of the wold around him with a wonderful sense of what is funny and what is not. In The Pie at Night he has been using this to look at leisure.

The observation in his work is brilliant and he understands it because he is essentially an insider. Like many great artists he is truly declass having crossed the barrier between classes and deciding on one hand it is nonsense but on another it should not be forgotten because he knows what life is like for those who suffer as a result of it. This is why he is so clear on the danger of a London centric approach to culture dominating.

The sponsor to this event was Walter Smith a Birmingham based butchers. They gave away pork pies at the end of the event which tasted wonderful.

The audience was large for this event as it was for the Richard Coles event earlier in the evening. Now I have to admit the queue for the Coles event caught me by surprise. I did not realise the guy was so popular, having not listened to his Radio Four show and having only really come across him as one of the “celebrity gay Christians”. That I realise says much about the world I inhabit.

The Coles event was introduced by the Very Reverend Catherine Ogle, dean of Birmingham Cathedral. This made the dynamic quite interesting because as we heard early in the evening Catherine had been a priest Richard had been on placement with when training for the priesthood. I think it was good because it firstly made the event more relaxed because it really was two friends chatting and secondly I think that it meant that Coles may have camped it up less because of who he had interviewing him.

As somebody currently living as in a theological college, as spouse of a trainee, I found what he was saying about his time at theological college particularly interesting.  The idea that part of the process is intended to get you to find your own limits so you can get out of the way and let Jesus work in your context was really interesting.

The book which was being discussed and promoted in this event was Fathomless Riches: or how I went from Pop to Pulpit. When I’ve heard it referred to by others the sexual elements have been focused upon somewhat. They weren’t in this presentation. What was discussed in a moving yet not emotionalist way were his experiences of mental health difficulties and of living through the 80’s when AIDS appeared. He made an important point that many gay men who lived through that time have repressed a lot of grief which needs to be dealt with. His own experience of writing the book was such that it was not cathartic but rather opened up issues which he needed to deal with.

There were also discussions within the Coles set about the role of Christians in broadcasting and the way in which he refuses to separate his religious self from his broadcaster self whilst not inappropriately using a secular space to push Christianity and so on. He views his role in that context as missional and about taking Christ into the world.

Overall I think this was the event I was most surprised at and pleased by. It was a wonderful example of how faith and life more generally can be discussed in a normal way and how secular and sacred can mix in a way which does not have to be a parody of itself.

The other event I went to at the BLF which I have not covered on this blog yet was author Alan Ahlberg, author of over 150 books, mainly children. His event was also incredibly popular and fun. It was also slightly poignant because it showed how age can catch up with us in ways we don’t expect. The readings from his work he did were excellent and it was a privilege to hear him talk although I do wonder if a more intimate venue may have been more comfortable for him.

So overall what did I make of the BLF? Well, I thought it was an amazing event which I was overjoyed at having been able to attend so much of through my purchase of a festival pass.

My main criticisms or suggestions for improvements may have been (i) to perhaps have small events going on in the foyer between evening events when people were just hanging about for ¾ hour, (ii) have a paper information pack for pass holders with events, etc for them detailed which they would be given with their festival pass, (iii) brief ushers to signpost pass holders to get pass if they were just using normal tickets, (iv) try to get venue doors open a little earlier and (v) to perhaps have more evening events for want to be writers rather than just daytime workshops.

However, as I say it was a really great programme of events. I loved it and am thankful for everybody who worked and/or volunteered on this event in whatever capacity. 

Peterson Toscano @ Woodbrooke Reviewed

Peterson Toscano is an American, Queer, Quaker performance artist and community theologian who some of you will be familiar with from his performances at the Greenbelt Festival. Yesterday he appeared at the WoodbrookeQuaker Study Centre, which is Europe’s only residential Quaker centre – established in 1903.

I had seen Peterson perform a range of times in a range of contexts. One of the things about him is he has a range of performance styles and you are never quite the same.

Yesterday he was using a discussion driven performance style which is one he indicated that he often uses when performing to audiences which are predominantly Quaker.

He began by explaining that the performance would work by him giving three facts about himself, which relate to his work and then the audience would then be invited to ask questions which would determine what direction the performance went in.

The three facts he gave himself all related to work I had seen him perform previously or work I knew he was engaged in:

1)    He is gay and was in the past part of ex-gay programmes as he spent 17 years and a great deal of money seeking to turn himself straight before coming to accept his sexuality. This is the work which informed the first show of his I saw when I slipped into a fringe event at the 2008 Lambeth Conference, Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo’ Half Way House.

2)    He is a bible scholar who has done a lot of work looking at gender non-conforming characters. This informed work I appreciated at Greenbelt a couple of years ago entitled Transfigurations.

3)    He is a somebody who has looked at climate change from a queer perspective as he sees it as a LGBT, faith and human rights issue.

 

The first question he was asked related to who were his favourite gender non-conforming characters and this enabled him to give to unpack some of his biblical study on the two Ethiopian eunuchs referring to Jeramiah 38 & 39. He then went on to do a scene talking based on Esau talking about Joseph and his multi-coloured garment.  I am currently doing a bible study project writing letters to different characters and have been working my way through Genesis on my other blog. Seeing this scene again helped me to connect with Esau in a way I had not been able to in writing these letters. When then expanding on his work about gender variant characters he talked about the importance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance and urged those attending to support their local events.

He then moved on to climate change via thinking again about Joseph and referring to the way during time of famine Pharaoh didn’t use a just solution, rather the poor were required to go and purchase this from him to survive. He explained why we need to find just solutions.

He was then asked about language and took a couple aspects of Transfigurations to illustrate his answer. Within this he talked about the power of acting out and embodying the Christian story.

As he then went back to climate change he introduced a character I had not seen before Elizabeth Jerimiah. As he put the wig, glasses and earrings on he launched in to a really interesting skit which illustrated some of the contradictions which we need to bear in mind when looking at evangelical women (and whilst he didn’t name her it was clear he meant people such as Joyce Myer).

Then he went into a popular character who reappears from time to time in his work Marvin Bloom. Within this he moved on to the effects of climate change which people really care about e.g. coffee leaf rust. He also bought in the concept of climate denial. When he was expanding on this afterwards his strongest condemnation was for hope deniers (who are often environmental activists who say we have reached the point of no return).

He talked movingly of why climate change was a queer issue. He particularly focused on the way in which LGBT youth homelessness is a real problem because many homeless projects are run by churches and either they do not accept LGBT people or LGBT young people are scared of them. He said in the big storms in the US these young people had been the group most effected. He also drew attention to the problems elderly LGBT people who because of their past may have no biological family to look after them face and made the point we need to look out for these people.

Whilst the UK is different from the USA in many ways and we face extreme weather less often the underlying points were still relevant and challenging.

He then went on to draw parallels with the crisis that the public didn’t want to acknowledge and address in the 19080’s – AIDS. He recommended the audience watch the documentary “How to Survive a Plague”.

He argued that climate change has a similar silence around it to that AIDS had in the past. He also drew the parallel that in that disaster all suffered but not equally. The poorer you were the more you were likely to suffer.

He then moved on to look at the history of the ex-gay movement and told a story of his interaction with John Schmidt who had formally run one of the ex-gay movements which had inflicted so much pain on him. This was something he also explained in detail at Greenbelt this year in a seminar on conflict resolution. Within this he talked about how restorative justice can liberate oppressors as well as the oppressed.

Finally he gave a little bit of detail about the US Quaker divisions on their view of LGBT people. I was surprised to hear about this because I had the view Guardian readers were just pretty fluffy. However, when he explained what the reasons were underlying it made sense because these are the issues which to my mind is underlying all the discussions in the various denominations about LGBT issues and that is it is really a discussion on the authority and nature of scripture.

I enjoyed this presentation because it took a form which allowed the audience to see the many sides of Peterson and his work. He is a talented performer and community theologian who has much to offer those willing to listen and then reflect upon his work.