Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief

Just came across this on an arts mailing list. Alas I’m not a photographer (I like taking snapshots with my phone, but that probably doesn’t count…) because this strikes me as a great opportunity to create, or find, powerful images of christianity alive in a multi-faith Britain. Worth much more than any amount of whinging over crucifixes in classrooms, however justified. If you’re handy with a camera, this would be a good project:

Asia Europe Interfaith Cultural Photography contest

CALL FOR UK ENTRIES

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is looking for photographs that depict Interfaith Dialogue in action to submit on behalf of the UK.

It can nominate up to ten participants for the competition, which involves 43 countries across Europe and Asia. Winning photographs will be displayed at the Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre in February 2010

The winners of the top three prizes will be awarded €1000, €500, and €250 respectively. The top five winners will also be awarded a photography trip to Thailand on 1 – 4 February 2010.

TO ENTER

Submit your photographs with a brief description to ASEMUK@fco.gov.uk making sure the attachments are in total no larger than 1 MB

Deadline for entry is Friday 4 December The FCO will notify those who have nominated to represent the UK by Friday 11 December.

Photographs must not have been featured or printed in previous publications, promotional materials or websites. Participants must be able to visit Thailand on 1-4 February 2010 in the event they are selected as winners.

Not a review, just wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed the two episodes so far. The presenter doesn’t seem to like the catholic church much but as the church doesn’t have a spotless record I don’t feel particularly outraged. Who would want to defend the atrocities of the crusades? Although even I thought his bitter description of St Francis as ‘almost pathologically non-conformist’ was sad.

It has got me thinking about objectivity, and this seems as good a time as any to mention this general rule of thumb: when someone disagrees with your opinion, they are biased, but when they are largely sympathetic they are objective. I do it too, but it’s much easier to spot in others…

This is why, for example, some catholic commentators are under the impression that Ann Widdecombe is objective.

The third episode of ‘A History of Christianity’ is going to be about the Orthodox church, which should be interesting. I don’t feel drawn to the orthodox church, probably for cultural reasons, but I can’t help thinking that logic would dictate that it’s the orthodox church who have valid sacraments. The argument in my head goes like this:

Anglicans claim (I think – this might be wrong) that they, the roman catholics and the orthodox have valid sacraments/apostolic succession. Roman catholics claim that they and the orthodox have valid sacraments/apostolic succession but the anglicans don’t. The orthodox claim that only they have valid sacraments, and that both roman catholics and anglicans are schismatic churches.

So only the orthodox are agreed by all three churches to be kosher.

There’s no doubt some obvious flaw here that I haven’t spotted and am happy to have it pointed out to me.

… which must mean I have finally got over my nun phobia.

One of Mr E’s fervent interests is chess, which is lucky for me because it means that I often get to see parts of England I would not normally otherwise visit. I have a particular fondness for the seaside, in or out of season, and this year chess took us to Blackpool and Torquay. Small pleasures.

But sometimes the attraction of the chess congress palls even for the most dedicated chess WAG, and so this weekend just past I didn’t accompany Mr E to A City I Shall Not Name. Friday evening, he called soon after arrival. “You know I’m staying at the venue, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s a good thing, right?” I replied. It would mean that he doesn’t have to get up too early, and also if The City turned out not to be a very nice place (I have never been to This Particular City and can make no judgement on the matter) he wouldn’t actually have to go out in it. “Well, normally it would be a good thing,” he said. “But they omitted to tell us something about the centre.”

It turns out that it is some sort of  convent-turned-conference-centre run by nuns. Or rather nun, singular. “As soon as we got here, we were met by a nun asking us if we wanted sandwiches the next day! And there are pictures of the pope grinning at me!” He was not happy, although of course I found it very funny.

Now, I know some people have preferences for what a nun should wear. In this instance, it was a definite bonus that she was not attired in a wimple. Mr E is not one to notice much what people wear (although he would notice a wimple), and described her outfit as “some sort of a purple jumper.” But he said that she looked like a nun somehow, although that might have been something to do with the large crucifix she was wearing.

And apparently she was everywhere, always busy, completely engaging with her visitors and doing things like making sandwiches and collecting teacups and generally bustling in a welcoming manner. Come Sunday evening when he returned, I asked him about the singular nun and behold, she had completely won him over. “She was brilliant,” he said.

I had been a bit sceptical about the centre, because the way Mr E described it on the phone made it sound not very spiritual at all. There was a huge chapel, which would have been used for the congress if there were more participants. “What about all the pews?” Mr E had asked. “Oh, we would just move those out,” he was told. He was grateful there had not been enough numbers to warrant playing chess there. I don’t think he liked the idea of playing chess under a crucifix.

I was a bit puzzled. “What about the blessed sacrament?” I asked, mostly to myself because Mr E doesn’t really know what that is. “Oh, there was something called a Blessed Sacrament chapel, where people could pray.” So that was separate, which was a relief. “Were you sleeping in the same building as the Blessed Sacrament chapel?” I asked when he came home. “Well, I suppose so, it was all one place,” he said. And I thought that was a nice thing.

I don’t know if it is a convent that has fallen on hard times (or run out of nuns), or maybe it was never a convent at all; but although at first I thought it was a bit off to have a religious place used as a conference centre I’ve changed my mind. Although I think the key thing here was the nun; if it had been a catholic building run by lay-people as a secular conference centre, that would still feel off-key to me. (Nuns are still lay-people aren’t they? But you know what I mean…) However, the Sister was so hospitable and charming, and Mr E has never said such accomodating things about catholics before (general and particular) as he has in the past day.