What is the purpose of creativity and imagination?

Dorothy L. Sayers remarked on the fact that the one thing we know for sure about God at the point that he makes humanity in his own image is that he is creative:

“[H]ad the author of Genesis anything particular in his mind when he wrote? It is observable that in the passage leading up to the statement about man, he has given no detailed information about God. Looking at man, he sees in him something essentially divine, but when we turn back to see what he says about the original upon which the “image” of God was modelled, we find only the single assertion, “God created”. The characteristic common to God and man, is apparently that: the desire and ability to make things”. (The Mind of the Maker)

She argues that it is therefore logical to suppose that creativity is a significant aspect of humanity’s being made in the image of God. Similarly:

“In his essay “The Image of God and the Epic of Man,” [Paul] Ricoeur suggests that humans are in the image of God because they too enjoy the power of creativity. Thus the image of God, creativity, gives rise to the images of man, in the sense of the images that man makes. These images constitute “the sum total of the ways in which man projects his vision on things.”” (K. J. Vanhoozer, Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: A Study in Hermeneutics and Theology)

Within the Biblical Creation stories human creativity is seen in: God’s blessing of humanity which included the tasks of increasing in number, filling and subduing the earth and, ruling over living creatures (Genesis 1: 28); Adam’s working and taking care of the garden (Genesis 2: 15); and, Adam’s naming of the living creatures (Genesis 2: 20). Albert Wolters brings both sociality and creativity together when he comments that:

“Adam and Eve, as the first married couple, represent the beginnings of societal life; their task of tending the garden, the primary task of agriculture, represents the beginnings of cultural life." (Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview)        

These two also sit together because of the development that runs through the stories. Wolters describes this in speaking of Genesis 1:

“There is a process of development and evolution as the earthly realm assumes, step by step, the contours of the variegated world of our experience. On the sixth day this process is completed with the creation of man, and on the seventh day God rests from his labors. This is not the end of the development of creation, however. Although God has withdrawn from the work of creation, he has put an image of himself on the earth with a mandate to continue. The earth had been completely unformed and empty; in the six-day process of development God had formed it and filled it – but not completely. People must now carry on the work of development: by being fruitful they must fill it even more; by subduing it they must form it even more. Mankind, as God’s representatives on earth, carry on where God left off. But this is now to be a human development of the earth … From now on the development of the created earth will be societal and cultural in nature.” 

In addition to the six day development of creation, development is also seen in: God’s blessing of humanity in Genesis 1: 28; Adam’s working and taking care of the garden (Genesis 2: 15); and the two trees that held the potential for god-likeness (Genesis 2: 9, 16 & 17, 3: 22). Wolters says of the world that “[c]reation is not something that, once made, remains a static quality. There is, as it were, a growing up (though not in a biological sense), an unfolding of creation.”

The latter point is worth expanding further. One tree held out the potential for becoming like God in having the knowledge of good and evil, the other in living forever. The former tree was banned for Adam and Eve while the latter is not. One reading of this story is that God intended Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Life and become like him in having eternal life. If so, this is another example of development. 

For the stories to have this development dynamic suggests creation is both actuality and possibility and that humanity has the responsibility of actualising the possible. If so, possibilities are, as Ricoeur argues, real, although unactualised. Ricoeur suggests that imagination leads to actualisation and that both are a means of self-understanding for humanity:

“Ricoeur is unwilling to dismiss human projects as unreal just because they have not yet been realized or because their conditions do not yet obtain: “It is by virtue of an unjustifiable reduction that we decide to equate ‘world’ with the whole of observable facts; I inhabit a world in which there is something ‘to be done by me’; the ‘to be done by me’ belongs to the structure which is the ‘world’.” In the case of human willing, the possible precedes the actual, for the forming of a project precedes its realization: “The presence of man in the world means that the possible precedes the actual and clears the way for it; a part of the actual is a voluntary realisation of possibilities anticipated by a project.” Moreover, in determining to do something, I likewise determine myself: “In the same way that a project opens up possibilities in the world, it opens up new possibilities in myself and reveals me to myself as a possibility of acting. My power-to-be manifests itself in my power-to-do …” The “possible” is therefore an essential component in self-understanding. I achieve self-understanding when I grasp what possibilities are open to me." (Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur)

This can be seen in the Creation stories when God asked Adam to name the living creatures. Names in ancient culture are descriptive of the essence or meaning of objects or people. Therefore, here God was asking Adam to be creative both in imagining the possibilities for each creature and in the forming of a name to reflect those possibilities. However, God was also asking Adam to develop self-understanding because the naming of the living creatures is set in the context of finding a helper for Adam. As Adam imagined possibilities for each creature he was also coming to an understanding of his needs as a human being and rejecting each creature in turn as a suitable helper for him. Therefore, when God creates Eve, Adam had the necessary self-understanding to recognise Eve immediately as the helper for which he had been seeking (2: 23 & 24).     

I am suggesting therefore that the creation stories depict a relational God creating a relational world with which he interacts. Within this he created humanity in his relational image to develop the relational possibilities inherent within creation; these being, as Colin Gunton suggests in The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity, to develop the practical implications of relationality, perichoresis and substantiality through sociality and creativity.

God’s intention was that this task would be undertaken by human beings in relationship with him and with the rest of creation. Not only was humanity created in his image but humanity’s task was to be undertaken in his image, as though he himself were undertaking it. It is this that helps us to understand the meaning of the ban on Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God, as the source of all things, contains both actuality and possibility. In creation he actualised good, and evil remained only an unactualised possibility. Nevertheless it is real (though unactualised) and can be imagined (either through imagining the opposite of the actual or difference in the actual) and thereby actualised.

God’s intention was then to train humanity for our task of developing creation by assisting us to imagine possibilities as a means to self-understanding. This is what I noted in the story of Adam naming the living creatures. In this way God was acting like a parent telling her child not to put his hand into a fire. The child imagines the pain of being on fire and learns the lesson. God in the creation stories wished to do the same. He wished to introduce human beings to the knowledge of good and evil by imagining, under his guidance, the possibility of evil, as a means of learning the dangers inherent in actualising evil. In this way human beings could have developed into divinity by gradually developing the knowledge of good and evil and then by eating the fruit from the Tree of Life and living forever.

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Van Morrison - Rave On John Donne / Did You Get Healed?

Community campaigns

Seven Kings & Newbury Park Resident's Association (SKNPRA) organised a recent meeting to review the recent history of community campaigns in the area and to explore ideas for continuing community campaigns in future. The meeting heard four different approaches outlined by representatives of SKNPRA, Take Action for Seven Kings (TASK), Residents Associations in the UK, and The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO).

 

SKNPRA and TASK have undertaken a wide range of influential community campaigns and community improvement activities such as community clean-up actions. The two organisations have supported each other's campaigns but differ in that SKNPRA is a formally constituted membership association while TASK has had a less formal membership and decision-making structure. It was noted that, while the three founding members of TASK are for varying reasons no longer able to take its work forward as they once were, Padraig Floyd hopes to liaise with members to explore how to take TASK forward in future.  

 

Resident's Associations in the UK seeks to link up Resident's Associations as part of a wider network which can provide information, resources and coordination for campaigns. Their website provides much of their information and resources as well as a help desk feature for specific advice.

 

TELCO works with the people who want to transform the world — from what it is to what they believe it should be. Drawing on the proven power of person-to-person organising, their work transforms communities and builds the local power necessary to create local and national change. They challenge people to imagine the change they can accomplish, connect individuals and organisations to multiply their power, and mobilise people by the thousands to make their voices heard.

 

These differing approaches - local campaigns through constituted associations, local campaigns through informal associations, networked associations, and area-wide community organising - together with single issue campaigning represent the main ways of doing community campaigning in the UK.

 

The discussion which followed the four presentations included input from Resident Association organisers and members, Trade Union officials and local Councillors. The discussion emphasised the importance of campaigns being locally focused but also recognised the benefits of shared campaigns and local groups working together in wider networks. Wider networks were more able to deliver training in campaigning or community organising to local people and could present a greater weight of opinion on issues that were shared across a wider area. The issue of disparities between different areas was raised as an aspect of community campaigns - this sense is often a motivator to local people to join campaigns - but it was also suggested that where such disparities became the main focus of campaigns the effect could be counter-productive. The importance of genuinely involving all groups within the local community in local campaigns and the need for greater understanding of how to do so was also noted.

 

The meeting seemed useful as a way of introducing organisations which provide campaigning networks to local campaigners and also as a way of beginning to form links and networks across local campaigning groups.

 

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The Ruts - In A Rut.

Cynicism and grace

For various reasons I've been reflecting recently on aspects of ministry that can be perceived as or predicted to be failures in that there are no tangible positive results from our input (such as, for example, pastoral visits to those with dementia).

It seems to me that investing time, effort and energy in people and situations which do not yield tangible positive results or even where it can be anticipated that such results are unlikely to be achieved is an inevitable element of ministry. This is because ministry is essentially creating or offering an opportunity for grace to be received and, because we have free will, such opportunities are often rejected.

While there is a real sense that discouragement is likely to follow if all we experience is the rejection of those grace opportunities we are involved in creating, nevertheless it seems to me that we cannot pick and choose those to whom grace is to be offered and therefore need to be willing and able to offer opportunities for grace to be received to those whom come our way.

As a result, while seeking to be wise about the motivations of those with whom we come into contact, it seems wrong to me to be cynical about the motivations of others and to withhold ministry and the opportunity for grace to be received for that reason.

I've finally got around to reading Rob Bell's excellent Love Wins, long after the controversy it caused has blown over, and, with the above thoughts in mind, was particularly struck by the following:

"Cynicism we know, and skepticism we're familiar with. We know how to analyze and pick apart and point out inconsistencies. We're good at it. We've all been burned, promised any number of things only to be let down. And so over time we get our guard up, we don't easily believe anything and trust can become like a foreign tongue, a language we used to speak but now we find ourselves out of practice.

Jesus invites us to trust that the love we fear is too good to be true is actually good enough to be true."

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Gungor - Dry Bones.

Handing on the Torch

Christianity is the largest movement our world has ever seen. Nearly one third of the world’s population identify themselves as Christians, making Christianity by far the world’s largest religious group. A recent report on the size and distribution of the world’s Christian population, ‘Global Christianity’, says that 2.18 billion of the world’s 6.9 billion people are Christian, compared with about 600 million of the world’s 1.8 billion people in 1910. This means that “Christians make up about the same portion of the world’s population today (32%) as they did a century ago (35%).”

The report says that 1.3 billion (61%) of Christians in the world live in the ‘Global South’, compared with 860 million (39%) who live in the ‘Global North.’ The study says that about half of the Christians in the world are Roman Catholic, 37% are Protestants, 12% are Orthodox, and the remaining 1% are of other Christian traditions.

Christianity continues to grow at an immense pace – especially in Asia (including China ), Africa and Latin America . At the same time, Christianity in the West struggles to grow and – perhaps – even to survive. In this year’s Lent course - Handing on the Torch - sacred words for a secular world  - we will consider some of the reasons for this and what it might mean for individual Christians, for churches and for Western culture, in a world where alternative beliefs are increasingly on offer.

This course, which has been prepared by York Courses, comes in five sessions:

Session 1 – A Christian Country?

Session 2 – A Secular Society?

Session 3 – A Beleaguered Church?

Session 4 – Competing Creeds? and

Session 5 – Handing on the Torch.

The participants on the course CD are Archbishop Sentamu - the Archbishop of York, Clifford Longley - RC author, broadcaster and journalist and Rachel Lampard - who has responsibility for the Methodist Church 's engagement with political issues. Bishop Graham Cray - Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team - provides the Closing Reflection at the end of each session and Dr David Hope - former Archbishop of York - introduces the course.

As in previous years, this course is being organised by the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches and can be studied at the local Methodist Churches, St John’s and St Peter’s Aldborough Hatch. Those attending in previous years have greatly appreciated the York Courses that we have used, so, if you want to learn more about the Christian faith, tackle the biggest questions facing humanity, and examine your own beliefs, in fellowship with others, then this course is for you.

The course can be studied at:

* St John’s Seven Kings on Wednesday mornings (from 10.45am) and evenings (from 8.00pm) on 29^th February, 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, and 28^th March.

* St Peter's Aldborough Hatch on Wednesday mornings (from 11.00am) on 29th February, 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th March.

* Goodmayes Methodist Church on Thursday afternoons (from 2.00pm) on 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th March. 

A Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches Lent Service led by the Philadelphia Church will bring the course to a conclusion on Tuesday 3^rd April at 8.00pm at Seven Kings United Free Church.

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After The Fire - Joy.

The Big Society and the small acts of individuals

Redbridge deanery synod tonight was on the topic of the Big Society. The main speaker was Daniel Singleton, National Executive Director of FaithAction, a network of Faith based and Community organisations serving their communities by delivering public services (such as childcare, health and social care, housing and welfare to work). Daniel has recently written a FaithAction booklet setting out a faith-based response to the Big Society called ‘How to eat an elephant’.Daniel said that the Big Society is not a policy but a philosophy. It is to do with the choices made by individuals and, therefore, is at the micro level of society. It will be shown by random acts of kindness and involves a move towards a more neighbourly society. The Big Society has to start and end with the small acts of individuals.

In our church clusters we then discussed what we could contribute to the Big Society in Redbridge in future, what will we want to question about the Big Society in Redbridge in future, and how will we do that.

In my introductory remarks I said the following:

Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, has said that "If we're searching for the big society, [religion] is where we will find it."

He had two reasons for making that statement. First, he quoted new research by the Harvard sociologist Robert Puttnam, showing that places of worship still bring people together in "mutual responsibility": “The evidence shows that religious people - defined by regular attendance at a place of worship - actually do make better neighbours.”

Second, he argued that: “Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighbourliness.”

The truth of this can be demonstrated through research commissioned by the Cinnamon Network; a group of over 100 Chief Executive Officers of faith-based charities developing responses to the Government's Big Society agenda. Their research reveals that churches and their congregations contribute significant time as well as monies to their communities.

The 284 churches involved in the sample delivered a total of 439,000 hours of volunteer service in the last 12 months, which equates to 1,925 per church on average. These churches contributed £1,234,000 to finance social action work, or £7,568 per church, spent on an average of 3.3 projects.

Projecting these figures against population and church going for the UK gives an estimate of 72 million hours of volunteering for Church-led initiatives over 12 months.
We don’t have equivalent figures for Redbridge but we do know on the basis of the Big Society Mapping Event that was organised last year with Redbridge Council that a wide range of services are currently delivered by faith groups including:

·   Services/facilities for children – toddler groups and crèche facilities; uniformed organisations; support for parents;

·   Services/facilities for young people – detatched youth work; football clubs; drug and alcohol projects;

·   Service/facilities for adults – ESOL classes; healthy living classes;

·   Services/facilities for elderly – day centres; nursing homes; inter-generational projects;

·   Other services/facilities – counselling and bereavement services; confidence building; book and art classes; fitness classes; and Neighbourhood Watch.

We also have an agreed database where a fuller and more detailed picture of faith-based contributions to the Big Society can be gathered – that is the database maintained by Redbridge CVS – and you have all been given a copy of the form to use for entering details of your voluntary and community services.
Once we have this better map of the voluntary service contribution of faith groups to this borough then, as well as our contribution to the Big Society being better recognised, two further possibilities can come into play. First, our buildings could be considered for the delivery of Council services and/or the services of other Government agencies. It makes no sense for precious local authority finances to be used on new builds when existing community buildings may have spare capacity? Use of existing community buildings, such as those we own, locates Council services firmly in the local community and provides support to the voluntary and community sector through rental income. That is a win win situation.
Second, faith groups, the wider voluntary and community sector and the local authority can then together take an informed look at the range of existing provision in the borough, signpost to existing services more effectively, identify gaps in provision, and work together to develop new services which meet real local needs.

An example of that occurring has already happened in the borough since the meeting as the increased numbers of homeless people in the borough was a major topic of discussion at the Mapping Event and since then the churches in the borough has started the new Night Shelter based at the Salvation Army in Ilford.
Our response to the Big Society should be that of a critical friend able to ask many questions about the direction of travel both here in the borough and nationally. The Archbishop of Canterbury articulated some of these issues last year in the edition of the New Statesman which he edited.

He wrote that:

“If civil society organisations are going to have to pick up
responsibilities shed by government, the crucial questions are these. First, what services must have cast-iron guarantees of nationwide standards, parity and continuity? (Look at what is happening to youth services, surely a strategic priority.)

Second, how, therefore, does national government underwrite these strategic "absolutes" so as to make sure that, even in a straitened financial climate, there is a continuing investment in the long term, a continuing response to what most would see as root issues: child poverty, poor literacy, the deficit in access to educational excellence, sustainable infrastructure in poorer communities (rural as well as urban), and so on? What is too important to be left to even the most resourceful localism?”

Our role as faith groups is, I believe, to ask these questions at the same time as we play our part in expanding the Big Society within Redbridge.

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The Harbour Lights - Last Port Of Call.

Windows on the world (182)

London, 2012

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Nick Drake - Time Has Told Me.

Aldborough Hatch: The village in the suburbs

This evening I led a service of Holy Communion at St Peter's Aldborough Hatch where I took the photos above. Ron Jeffries, a local community activist and historian, is a member of St Peter's and has written a book about the history of Aldborough Hatch:

"This book is the culmination of many years of delving into the life and lives of a unique community on the edge of the Green Belt in the London Borough of Redbridge. Born here, the author is one of many who have campaigned locally to keep the countryside of Aldborough Hatch open for all to enjoy.

This is not an official – nor is it an unofficial – history of Aldborough Hatch. Rather it is a lively, often amusing and sometimes revealing journey across the centuries – from the time when the forest of Essex covered much of Fairlop Plain to the present day when the traffic on the A12 on its southern boundary roars past on its way into mainland Europe and far beyond. If St. Peter’s Church features large in this book, this is because it has been at the very heart of Aldborough Hatch for the past 150 years and much local history is tied up within its walls.

But this is no dull catalogue of the past, for the pages bring to life little-known facts such as that Aldborough Hatch had its own “Lover’s-walk”, that the Dick Turpin has its roots in a Beer House in a cottage, that diarist Samuel Pepys visited, and poet John Donne and politician George Lansbury lived here, that Lulu’s Boom Bang-a-Bang started life here, that in 1862 villagers hereabouts spent the evening engaged in “rustic sports”, that the first lady Churchwarden at St. Peter’s was elected in 1915 (three years before women had the vote) and that actor, producer, director and author Bryan Forbes lived here and Hollywood superstar Rock Hudson visited a home here.

Published in 2012 to coincide with the 150^th Anniversary of the Consecration on 6^th March 1862 of St. Peter’s Aldborough Hatch, the book includes maps dating back to 1777 and in addition to the history of Aldborough Hatch Chapel, St. Peter’s and St. James, the stories behind Cuckoo Hall, St. Chad’s Well, the farms in Aldborough Hatch, Fairlop Airfield, Fairlop Waters, Newbury Park Station and the Ilford War Memorial Gardens."

Aldborough Hatch

The Village in the Suburbs – A History

120pp in full colour with 143 photographs, 13 illustrations and 10 maps

Publication March 2012 – ISBN 978-0-9561877-2-7

£14.99 plus £2.50 postage and packing in UK

Pre-Publication Offer £12 (plus £2.50 postage if sent by mail in UK)

Please make cheques payable to Ron Jeffries

Available direct from the Publisher: Ron Jeffries - Tel: 020 8599 7250; Email: ronjeffries@live.co.uk

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The Members - Sound Of The Suburbs.