I have to admit to some trepidation as I approached this book. Not only is Dinah the editor of Sofia, but she's someone I've known and respected for a long time. How could I, in the circumstances, be even vaguely objective or critical about it? In addition, as the subtitle makes clear, its subject is 'Poetic Vision and Kindness' – and I tend to struggle with poetry.
There's plenty of that here (especially Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth) as you'd expect, given the subtitle. But it's poetry with a particular purpose – poetry in the service of 'the poetic vision'. Which turns out to be the Building of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
Those for whom religious imagery is a turn-off will tend to steer well clear. And that's a pity, because they'd derive enormous benefit from it. As would (paradoxically) those who can't get enough religious imagery – but who take it all literally.
Dinah's twin targets are unimaginative literalism and unkindness – which often go together. And as she engages with biblical stories and Church liturgy, she shows that understanding them in a non-supernatural way is in no sense a diminishment. 'Where there is no vision, the people perish' – but that vision doesn't have to (and maybe shouldn't?) involve anything outside or beyond this life.
But simply 'having a vision' is never enough. It needs to be one suffused by kindness, by a respect for each and every human being – with the vision proffered by the neo-liberals having disastrous consequences for those even vaguely near the bottom of the heap.
The willing 'suspension of disbelief' is essential if we are to move beyond the woodenly banal. When we go to the theatre or cinema, we do so without hesitation. But when it comes to religion it's another story altogether (along the lines of 'if it's not factual, it's not real'). But why should those who can't take religion literally be made to feel second class citizens? (and why do those who can, get so cross with those who can't – and don't do the decent thing and simply walk away?)
If we are even to begin to do justice to the awesome Mystery in which we are embedded – we need the help of artists of all kinds. People who offer an alternative perspective, people with a fresh 'take' on the world. And I found it profoundly liberating to be led through passages from St Paul's Letters, St John's Gospel and the Book of Revelation – and shown how they could (should) be understood as poems.
As 'poetic visions' – and not 'just poetry'. Because the problem for many of those who take religion seriously, is that poetry doesn't seem a substantial enough basis for faith – maybe along the lines that 'poetry is just "stuff that's made up" – rather than a description of "what is". A real God needs to be grounded in reality. And reality is not something we can simply conjure up out of our imagination'.
'Poetic faith' involves the 'suspension of disbelief' – which means using our imagination. 'Is God real or not?' 'Is God just a figment of our imagination?' The words 'real' and 'just' are weasel words, freighted with all sorts of negativity. Maybe it comes down to the Humpty Dumpty question 'which is to be master'?'
However if meaning is use, and most people see the world in supernatural terms – 'the (normal) meaning' of religious words is bound to be supernatural. The religious perspective of those of us in SOF will surely always be that of a minority. But that shouldn't in any way exclude us from involvement in the churches, if that is what we find helpful.
And whether understood poetically or literally – 'the meaning' (in ethical terms) of religious texts is identical. What goes on inside people's heads as they work alongside one another for the Kingdom, is pretty irrelevant.
But if the supernatural is not part of the story – the onus is on us. It's our responsibility 'to realise on Earth what we imagined in a poetic vision'. The ethical buck stops here – the outworking of a vision brilliantly explored in this extraordinary book.
Tony Windross is the Vicar of Week St Mary, Holsworthy, Devon.