John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Haircut at Christos - the fellowship of fellows

Twenty one years since I last paid to get my hair cut, having this summer let the close crop grow out tatty, and under pressure to look at least half-decent at my stepson's wedding next weekend, I trawled the streets of Yeovil yesterday in search of a hair establishment I could feel comfortable in. Something in me just couldn't go unisex, I realised, having frozen at the door of a couple of girlish salons, and the paltry note in my pocket meant I wasn't going  upmarket (even if I'd wanted to). So I was getting a little despairing by the time I reached the shabby end of Middle Street, when, like a shining prize beneath a rainbow, nestling between ethnic takeaways, I spied CHRISTOS GENTS HAIR STYLIST.

Twenty minutes later, having toured in conversation the West Of England, South and North Wales and Snowdonia, Christos, a white-haired Welsh customer and I, teasing out connections between us, I emerged blinking (with my specs still in my pocket) into the South Somerset industrial sun, Seven Pounds Fifty and a few well-chosen grammes of hair lighter.

During our chat, for the first time ever in a barbers I soon realised that at the moment of 'reveal', when the conversation turned to occupation, I would have to confess that this exiled Scouser was a Church of England vicar. Christos went a bit quiet after I'd shared that, but the affable South Walian revealed that he'd sung as an adult in church choirs in Cheshire, and sounded me out for the vacancy at his village parish church.

I left, with my neck itching, and sensing that this fellowship - the banter of fellows seeking common ground - was what I'd been missing all these years of DIY clipping.

Christians ate my flesh: before the myth of sacrifice comes the murder

"Those who gnaw at my flesh and swig back my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ... Those who chomp and chew my flesh and guzzle down my blood abide in me, and I in them." It makes a difference when you read scripture in the original... Sitting down to a brief course of Christian cannibalism, with the help of Fred Nietzsche, Harry Patch, the protesting dairy farmers of Wincanton, and of course good old René Girard. Christians ate my flesh: before the myth of sacrifice comes the murder - my talk today.

 

Redeeming the Gods of Metal

I spent Hiroshima / Nagasaki Days reading Eric Schlosser's Gods of Metal; an engrossing piece of reportage on the 2012 'Transform Now' Plowshares activists who were imprisoned for their action at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee: protesting plans for a new multibillion dollar nuclear bomb plant there. The book's cover image illustrates the action: Michael R. Walli (63), Greg Boertje-Obed (57), and 82-year-old nun Sr Megan Rice (a Sister of the Holy Child Jesus since 1950) passed beyond four fences in a walk for over two hours through the Y12 facility, then they hammered on the cornerstone of the newly built Highly-Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility (HEUMF), splashed human blood and left four spray painted tags on the construction's gleaming white walls which read: "Woe to the empire of blood"; "The fruit of justice is peace"; "Work for peace not for war"; and "Plowshares please Isaiah". They were imprisoned for trespassing (as was their expectation and intention) and further charged by the government with sabotage.

Not only does this little book open your eyes to the serious flaws in nuclear security (in 2012 Y12 security was operated by a subsidiary company of the one which failed to do its job at the London Olympics the same year), but it also details the history of the Plowshares movement and gives clear expression to the motivation of those who give themselves to the bold mission of protesting weapons of mass destruction. I enjoyed the refresher (for me) of the story of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement and the Berrigan brothers' inauguration of Plowshares protests (look them up - please); and was inspired again by their straightforward motivation - to directly follow the teachings of The Sermon on the Mount and to take hammers to nuclear warheads in direct application of the prophecy of Isaiah 2.3-4: 

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for ... he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

 At a congressional hearing in September 2012 to discuss the security at Y-12, Texas Republican Representative Joe Barton, acknowledging the presence of Sister Megan in the audience, asked her to stand and told her, 'We want to thank you for pointing out some of the problems in our security.' Schlosser records Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, as being 'even more effusive': 

Addressing Sister Megan directly, Markey said, 'Thank you for your actions. Thank you for your willingness to focus attention on this nuclear-weapons build-up... We thank you for your courage ... you should be praised because that's ultimately what the Sermon on the Mount is all about.'

 

The bread of life 2: Living in love

... (A minister without a building, she spent months befriending the people on the streets, in the cafes and at the shop counters of the city), then one day the word ‘bread’ popped into Barbara’s head. She wasn’t sure what it meant at first, but she knew where it had come from. And so she kept it there in her head, this image of this bread, and she let her encounters with the city’s people moisten and stir the idea, in prayer she kneaded it, through contemplation and consideration of the scriptures she leavened it; and so this image of bread in her heart and her head rose, until the day when the opportunity came for Barbara to rent a room - a room which, she was sure by then, she would bake bread in. ...

- Last week I got Cilla Black involved; this week I've reprised the story of Liverpool's 'Bread Church', in my talk The bread of life 2: Living in love, today.

The bread of life: Barbara uses her loaf

... (A minister without a building, she spent months befriending the people on the streets, in the cafes and at the shop counters of the city), then one day the word ‘bread’ popped into Barbara’s head. She wasn’t sure what it meant at first, but she knew where it had come from. And so she kept it there in her head, this image of this bread, and she let her encounters with the city’s people moisten and stir the idea, in prayer she kneaded it, through contemplation and consideration of the scriptures she leavened it; and so this image of bread in her heart and her head rose, until the day when the opportunity came for Barbara to rent a room - a room which, she was sure by then, she would bake bread in. ...

- The story of Liverpool's 'Bread Church' revisited in my talk, The bread of life 1: Barbara uses her loaf, today.