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w to understand how to respond how to think of it how to speak of it and what to do it is extremely difficult and i don t feel that there is a great deal that i can say that could be useful except the following first that clearly drawn lines that make binary oppositions are the problem not the solution anyone who wants to think or speak or act helpfully needs to get beyond barrier thinking second it is only if we do this that we can calm the dynamics of retribution which invariably lead to uncontrollable spirals of violence third it is only if we free ourselves from binary loyalties that we can recognise that all abuses of power and violations of human rights should be condemned there are lines that it is right to defend but what are those lines they are not i d say the lines drawn between people but the lines drawn around people for their sake every human being deserves and needs the protection and respect of all other human beings no one should be subject to sudden attack or to sustained oppression if religion if god if monotheism is to be a force for good it must take the form of encouraging and facilitating the mutual respect and regard of one person for another whatever differences are apparent integral inherited acquired or assumed ours is the era when talk of human rights has been most prominent but also the era in which they have been most flagrantly relentlessly and publicly violated the harm in the harm of what we are witnessing is the callous disregard of the dignity needs and prospects of vulnerable human beings the principal demon among the many demons creating havoc is the demon of dehumanisation of disrespect of disregard that is the demon that needs to be named and exorcised at this time in history it is only when he has dominion that atrocities and war crimes are committed whatever we do we must not allow ourselves to worship the demon of dehumanization the demon who says we can harm others in any way we like because they don t really matter they don t count they are not as worthwhile or important as we are for when we worship and follow him we find ourselves being led as far as possible from the love of god and neighbour the demon of dehumanization leads us into the bowels of hell posted in uncategorized tagged dehumanization gaza god hamas israel monotheism palestine retribution 2 comments more to say october 15 2023 by stephen cherry hello i know it s been a long time since i last posted but well i was keeping my head down while i was writing another book that s completed now and will come out next easter so i am planning to have a bit more to say stay tuned in case you were wondering the new book is called unforgivable exploring the limits of forgiveness https www bloomsbury com uk unforgivable 9781399401326 posted in uncategorized tagged easter forgiveness leave a comment address to graduating students june 29 2022 by stephen cherry i gave this address to graduating students and their parents and other guests in king s college chapel cambridge on tuesday 28th june 2022 the majority of those of you who are graduating tomorrow will have started here in october 2019 maybe you recall the day of your matriculation reading there s no planet b and the animated discussion it provoked since then you will have had many more animated discussions as first these would have reflected the sorts of discussion you had at school as the months went by so you changed the agenda changed and the discussions changed that is always true but in your case of course covid 19 came knocking on the door didn t wait for a reply but just walked right in and proceeded to play havoc with all our expectations among other things it changed the range of the questions we were asking of ourselves and each other the last three years have been completely different to any other three years they have put us all to the test in new and super challenging ways when you look back it is truly remarkable to think how well we all coped this chapel came to the same grinding halt as everything else that was a matter of obeying the law of the land but life became truly testing when we had to balance the desire to carry on as normal with an assessment of the risks of every single activity the challenge here was first analytical and scientific but then it was social and communal not everyone saw things in the same way and yet we all had to act in concert necessity being the mother invention we all found new ways of achieving the same ends that was especially the case in here with regard to our christmas broadcasts on the radio and on the television in 2020 in both cases new plans were carefully drawn up and then repeatedly rewritten as things changed quite how anyone had enough headspace to progress the normal academic activities of teaching learning and research through all this now seems hard to imagine of course some work simply had to stop but there was remarkable productivity nonetheless students wrote essays and solved problems and fellows conducted research and wrote papers and books the productivity of this place is remarkable in terms of both quality and quantity that is reflected at every level across the university it s measured reported and celebrated but it s not the only thing of far more interest to me and of equal importance are the inner journeys that take place here those developments of mind and spirit and the overall growth in maturity and virtue that inform and make up our character who we really are this great chapel cambridge s most remarkable and iconic building stands to the glory of god but also and intentionally it creates space for the spirit space for the soul you never really feel that by looking at it from the outside but whenever you pass though the south door you walk into a space that is almost ridiculously large and capacious as well as beautiful and inviting some of you will have sometimes come along late on a thursday evening for heartspace a time just to be and rest and enjoy we tried doing heartspace on zoom during lockdown it was fun to put together a playlist and choose photos but it really wasn t the same the space and atmosphere of the chapel simply isn t communicable at least visually i sometimes think that our radio broadcasts give more sense of the place as the special acoustic is so evident that magic sound hints at the scale and warmth of king s and the encouragement of generosity and liberality that were the hallmarks of king henry vi s vision when he planned his college for 70 poor scholars cambridge is a place of achievement and you graduands deserve all the praise you are receiving but it is more profoundly a place of inner learning only you can really say how the inner you has been challenged and stretched encouraged and developed these last three or four years you probably haven t had much chance to think about that yet but maybe there will be a few moments in the days to come when you can sit and ponder or maybe walk and ponder not only how your mind has developed but how your heart has grown in this space a space and place where yes we are both traditional and on trend where we are often scruffy and sometimes superformal but where we do what we can to keep things open and vibrant and fresh and humane that is why we have readings at our chapel services not only from the bible but also from the likes of civil rights mystic and activist howard thurman from whose meditations of the heart you heard a few paragraphs earlier in the service i ll be honest and tell you that i hadn t heard of thurman until a few years ago but having come across one small quote from his writings i have looked out much much more it s inspired and inspiring in 2020 i even managed to slip a prayer of his into our televised christmas carol service this is how it goes the work of christmas when the song of the angels is stilled when the star in the sky is gone when the kings and princes are home when the shepherds are back with their flock the work of christmas begins to find the lost to heal the broken to feed the hungry to release the prisoner to rebuild the nations to bring peace among people to make music in the hear maybe there s a prayer called the work of graduation that needs to be written maybe it would go like this when the noise of the may balls is stilled when the rides from the front court are gone when the students and parents are home when the fellows are sadly alone the work of the graduate begins to find solutions to speak with clarity to be wise in judgement to be bold and creative to stand up and lead to continue to learn to be the one who makes peace to let gratitude fill the heart posted in uncategorized tagged howard thurman leave a comment hello again june 29 2022 by stephen cherry long time no blog but i ll be offering a few over the summer so do stay tuned i am going to be thinking a lot about forgiveness so there may be a blog or two on that subject a huge amount has been written about it since i published healing agony reimagining forgiveness back in 2012 and just this week the bbc has a series of forgiveness stories every day on bbc radio 4 https www bbc co uk programmes m0018npb meanwhile i will publish the address i gave yesterday at a service in king s college chapel cambridge for our graduating students posted in uncategorized leave a comment easter 2021 the importance of sadness and the abiding of love april 3 2021 by stephen cherry i have long been troubled by the insistence that easter should be celebrated with unalloyed joy three days may be all it takes for god to raise the dead but we all know from experience or observation that it can take a very long time to get over traumatizing experiences i suppose it would make sense if the resurrection were merely the reversal of a bereavement we thought our friend had died but no he s back among us hurray let s party but for those who have travelled the long and hard path of the so called holy week that careered from hosanna to crucify and ended with the various cries from the cross never mind the shrieks and wails of the sympathetic onlookers and the taunts and jeers of the rest for those of us who have let at least some of the suffering in as we have meditated on the sights sounds and smells of the betrayal abandonment torture and murder of a friend for those of us who have taken at least a few imaginative steps down the via dolorosa it s not so easy and in fact it s probably neither very mature nor very healthy simply to flip from desperation to joy it s always a mistake to connect our feelings and our faith too closely feelings come and go but faith like hope and love is the sort of thing than can should must and will abide remain endure and it s this solid reliable stuff that the traumatized and disillusioned the broken and the disappointed need don t just take my word for it shelly rambo puts this point at the heart of her deep and powerful study spirit and trauma a theology of remaining in the authorized version of the bible the two disciples on the road to emmaus ask jesus to abide with us for it is toward evening and the day is far spent these words from luke s gospel inspired the great hymn as abide with me fast falls the eventide as victorian clergyman henry francis lyte witnessed the death of his vicar and then moved knowingly and prematurely towards the end of his own life i don t suppose that hymn will be much sung over easter and yet i feel it might accurately reflect not only the truth of where many find themselves to be on their spiritual journey at the moment but also the depths of what they long for abide with me is often sung by sad people at funerals or memorials but is it not also true that we are if we are honest increasingly aware that sadness is not a feeling that comes and goes but a profound and dignified constant in the human condition a chance remark in a zoom discussion a few days ago reminded me of gillian rose s memoir love s work which then became my good friday reading i was arrested by this thought earthly human sadness is the divine comedy the ineluctable discrepancy between our worthy intentions and the ever surprising outcome of our actions she goes on to say more about this comedy quoting hegel who writes that it characterises someone raised altogether above his own inner contradiction and not bitter or miserable about it at all this in turn leads to sureness of self but for rose it is a very particular kind of sureness it is the sureness of self that is ready to be unsure and it s the unsureness not the sureness that she argues makes for the holy comedy of our condition and which requires of us the work of love which is also the abiding of love the point of the resurrection is not that joy quickly trumps sadness but that love abides love that is the partner not of supercharged and switched on happiness but of faith and hope the truth is that sadness persists and it s right that it does when we think of all we regret not only in terms of our own actions in the past but also in the injustices that are perpetrated every hour and in the untold suffering of millions in places of deprivation violence sickness or any other misery every day and every night we can never be content with a kind of joy from which sadness is excluded and yet the persistence of sadness is not the end of faith any more than the unsureness of self is the contradiction of appropriate humble and compassionate self confidence the persistence of sadness is the beginning of faith and hope it is not denied but it is answered by the abiding of love and therefore we rejoice posted in uncategorized tagged easter hope love trauma 1 comment thy will be done a question for every chapter february 13 2021 by stephen cherry my 2021 lent book thy will be done doesn t include questions for personal or group study however since publishing it i have written a question for every chapter i offer them here hoping they might be helpful to anyone using the book in lent part 1 heaven do you agree that the lord s prayer falls naturally into two halves heavenly and earthly to what extent is motherly father a helpful phrase for you who are the our in our father how big a problem is patriarchy for those who pray this prayer in these words which do you find it harder to believe that god is powerful or that god is intimately close what does it mean to say that the lord s prayer is not a spell part 2 earth bree newsom took the lord s prayer to the top of a flagpole in dangerous protest where might you take it how might christianity be different if jesus had defined the kingdom of god can you think of any good things that have happened while you were waiting for something or someone what are the best and worst aspects of monarchy what does it mean to see care givers high achievers what do you make of the phrase my own special god in my heart part 3 bread is bread ever simply bread what does it mean to say that food is a spiritual issue might it be helpful if the word o...
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