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Measuring the worth of society…

September 20, 2009 in Uncategorized by chris | No comments

Interesting discussion at the end of the ‘T0day Programme’ on Radio 4 this morning about how we might measure the progress and value added to members of society. You can listen to the clip here.

It describes how Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has been asked to report to French President Sarkozy- and has pointed in the direction of sustainability and well being (happiness.)

joseph stiglitz

In the wake of the collapse of economic systems around the world, this is a common theme- old macro economic measures like Gross Domestic Product seem to have let us down. Measuring our prosperity and ability to acquire goods and services does not give us a reliable way to measure the worth of society- or the degree to which those of us within it live satisfied and fulfilled lives.

I think that we people of faith are called to be fully aware that this life we are given is precious, and to celebrate all that is good and beautiful within it. We Christians live as disciples of Jesus, whose had a whole different set of priorities…

We live in a time when something vital about the human experience has been somehow distanced from us by an empire whose culture (and very economic survival) is driven by a chasing after STUFF- ever more and more stuff to fill in the void.

We are none of us immune form the powers of the empire we live within. I just bought a new camera. It is a posh SLR that will take images that are much sharper, much richer. But I have a camera already that takes a lot of the photos on this blog. Cameras are TOOLS, and to have a better tool is no crime. But will it make me happier- or life deeper and more meaningful? Of course not. But the empire- this would try to convince me otherwise- and for a while, I even believe that it will too.

The radio 4 piece makes a point about happiness- which has been a theme on this blog before (See here for example.) My day job as a mental health manager brings me constantly into contact with issues of happiness and mental wellbeing. We are in the middle of planning a redesigned mental health service for Argyll, and one of the key government documents we relate to is this one- ‘Towards a mentally flourishing Scotland.‘ It makes interesting reading from a spiritual point of view- digging into how we might create opportunities for people to find satisfaction and build community as a prescription for health- both mental and physical.

I am just reading this book- Rob Bell’s ‘Jesus wants to save Christians.’

jesus wants to save christians

The book is a journey through the Bible, retelling the story of our human journey. Bell talks about the earliest stories from Genesis- the first family of Adam, Eve and their children Cain and Abel. And of how Cain and Abel argue over land and the acquisition of STUFF- marking the descent of humanity from simple subsistence towards more complex economic systems based around the possession of land, and the means to produce more than what is immediately needed in order to sell and barter for other goods.

You could say that this was the rise of humanity, and also potentially the seed of our destruction.

We moved from dependence and vulnerability- to independence and risk aversion.

We moved from community- to individualism and self reliance.

We moved from the need to follow the seasons and live within the natural environment- to the need for central heating, air conditioning, and ever more energy to sustain it.

We moved from a nomadic existence – to being anchored below the weight of what we own.

We moved from a need for God- to the need to manage God to make him fit the lives we now follow.

Could this be the prescription for fulfillment and happiness?

Dependence.

Community.

Vulnerability.

Connection to the earth that made us.

Living simply as pilgrims.

Living spiritually, in search of God.

What might society be like then?

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Kindness- and spiritual maturity?

January 13, 2009 in Uncategorized by chris | 4 comments

Another great collection on Radio 4’s start the week programme. Listen again to it here.

There was this fascinating discussion about KINDNESS, relating to this new book, co written by a psycho analyst Adam Philips  and Historian Barbara Taylor.

on-kindness

They appear to take the view that our society has retreated from kindness as a way of interacting and engaging with the people around us. We assume that we are no longer inter-dependent and needful of others, and so kindness becomes identified with a kind of weakness and vulnerability.

They go as far as to suggest that we tend naturally towards kindness, but learn to suppress this as we grow into our culture. All Kindness, suggests Philips, is a RISK- but a risk that is transformative in the taking.

There is a review of this book in the Guardian newspaper by Mary Warnock, where she says this

Kindness to others arises out of sympathy. As the authors note, there is much evidence that other animals besides human beings (or “men” as they properly designate them) can enter into the sufferings and fears of others of their kind. But it is human animals alone who, because of their imaginative powers, can enter into the feelings of other people far removed from them, whom they cannot see or touch, but whose plight as fellow-humans they can share

In the Gospel of St Luke, a lawyer is told by Jesus that to live well he must love his neighbour as himself and, when he further asks who is to count as his neighbour, Jesus answers with the story of the good Samaritan, for many the very essence of Christianity. Kindness here arose spontaneously, not in obedience to any rule, in fact in defiance of convention. But as Christianity became increasingly ecclesiastical and hierarchical, with the consequent corruption of the priesthood, the good Samaritan was forgotten.

The new Protestantism declared man to be fundamentally sinful, such good actions as he could do dependent on the grace of God; and so the possibility of natural kindness disappeared.

So we come back to Jesus, and his call to live for a radically different agenda, according to the rules of a New Kingdom. And one of the watch-words of this new kingdom- is kindness.

It is one of those fruit listed by Paul as evidence of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. (See here for some more ponderings on this.)

When we come into contact with kindness at a point of real need, we rarely forget it. It lives on in our souls. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians- all sorts of other loud and visible manifestations of faith will clang like gongs and then fall silent- but love will last for ever.

Which makes me think again about the myth of the super-Christian. I am interested in the stature aquired and the adoration we give to some of our leaders- perhaps for their charisma, their vision or their oratory power. When one of these paragons of Christianity falls from Grace, how dreadful it seems… how shocking.

Might this be because we measure spirituality according to a strange criteria? We equate knowledge with understanding, declaration with practice and power with ordination from on high.

Might we best return to a more simple way of measuring-  achieved by a perception of  kindness shown, and a skew towards grace in all things. These are the leaders I look for. Jesus has ruined the others for me!

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