Paƫ Whaley Faversham, Kent Is there such a word as ‘post-non-realist’? Perhaps that’s what I am now. I no longer worry about the difference in real and non-real.
The surprising thing is, perhaps, that I go to church. Religious language doesn’t bother me – I use it myself, when the occasion requires it — and no one seems bothered about my own theology, or lack of it.
I returned to church in 2007 because I took up playing the organ. Organ-playing started as a whim, but the lure of making very loud noises with your feet proved irresistible, and if you want to play the organ, church is really your only option.
I’ve been assistant organist at St Mary of Charity parish church in Faversham for almost seven years now. St Mary’s has two congregations – a traditional congregation who attend Matins, Choral Evensong and BCP Holy Communion, and an ‘inclusive’ congregation who attend Family Worship (i.e., with guitars). Most choristers, and I am no exception, live for choral evensong. The chanted psalms, the singing of the Nunc Dimittis, and the chance to play Herbert Howells’ Master Tallis’ Testament as a postlude are really all the spiritual nourishment I could ever need.
Sometimes the sermons are worthwhile, but if they are not, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that really bothers me are overly sentimental ‘worship songs’ – being non-realist is absolutely no help when you’re faced with singing ‘you’re the one, you’re the best’ to Jesus.
Tim Jackson, whom summer conference attenders will know, talks about ‘meaning displacement activities’, those things into which you pour your desire for a more perfect world. Traditionally, for many people, it was religion. For wealthy Westerners, Tim argues, it is now shopping. For me, it remains music. It is that parallel universe wherein you can revel in dissonance, in the sure and certain hope of its resolution.
Around the end of July, the choir sings in residence at one of the cathedrals, and this is usually so close to the SOF summer conference that it is impossible to go to both. There is no SOF group in my area, though probably I would rarely attend if there were. I have sorted out my theological worries and I have little interest in revisiting them.
After ten years with Forum for the Future and now four years as vice-chair of ActionAid UK, I am firmly stuck into questions of inequality, economic injustice, impending climate change, and how a relatively privileged individual like myself can live a life that is enjoyable but not excessively exploitative of those less lucky than me. If there is a God, he calls us to love our neighbour and to render him that ultimate myth, justice. If there is no God, do it anyway.
Now that I am working less, I am able to read more, though never as much as I would like. When I joined SOF, I was thrilled to find people who read the same books as me, but I rarely read theology any more. The books on my growing Amazon wish list suggest that I now want to understand how the economic system works, how to eat well in a shrinking world, and what is the relationship between choice and happiness, but I also just like a good story. I loved Stoner, and I am eagerly awaiting Marilynne Robinson’s third novel about Gilead. I love the new science of behavioural economics, which goes beyond decision-making and risk-taking to look at how we make sense of our lives, and why the stories we tell ourselves loom larger in our minds than our actual lived experience – no surprise to Cupitt and to most non-realists, but now bolstered by experimental evidence.
SOF was a big part of my life for over ten years, and I remain grateful to it for welcoming my questions, freeing me from hankering after a real God, and introducing me to kindred souls who have remained my friends. But time is limited, and I must make choices about how I spend what remains to me – so I have also, reluctantly, abandoned studying Russian, that most fabulous of all languages. Keep up the good work. I must go and learn another Bach fugue.