MEET ÅSA AMANDA ARBJÖRK, ASPIRING BLOGGER

At Phoenix this morning, for a bit of one-to-one social media coaching with Åsa Amanda Arbjörk. She and I have known each other for ages, since I was teaching Creative Writing at The Rutland College in Oakham.

She was one of the star students on those courses. I was always enthusiastic about her writing and I'm glad to see that she is still. Back in the day, there was no such thing as blogging or tweeting or Facebooking (if there is such a verb) but now I'm a big enthusiast of all three. If someone wants to write, in almost any capacity and for almost any reason, then they have to throw themselves into the social media mix. That's what we're talking about today - and I'm hoping to give her the "benefit" of my "wisdom".

Åsa has many facets that set her apart from most of the other students to whom I've taught Creative Writing over the years (quite a few hundred of them). She's bilingual in English and Swedish (which has led to all sorts of unusual opportunities, such as sub-titling movies and TV shows for the Swedish market), benefits from an observant and reflective outsider's view of our society - and she lives in Stamford, which was recently selected by the Sunday Times as the best place to live in the UK. A piece like that just published about the place where you live is manna from heaven for someone who's looking for an excuse to start blogging - in my humble opinion.

GOING ON BEYOND 2: MYSTICISM FROM A CISTERCIAN PERSPECTIVE

At ChristChurch, Clarendon Park, this evening for the second session in the course, "Going On Beyond: Meditation and Mysticism in the World Faiths", offered by Christians Aware as part of their Faith Awareness programme. The nine-week course has been devised by Ian Grayling and Kevin Commons from the Leicester Serene Reflection Meditation Group.

Our topic this evening: “Mysticism from a Cistercian Perspective”, is presented by Father Joseph Delargy, Abbot of the Monastery of Mount St Bernard Abbey. Father Joseph (on the right of the photo above, with Kevin Commons) was kind enough to send me the complete text of his talk, which is reproduced in full below:

I have been invited to speak about Mysticism from a Cistercian Perspective. There are two words in that title that may need clarification.

Cistercian is the order of monks I belong to. It is a Roman Catholic Christian order founded in the year 1098. Today it numbers about 4000 of both of monks and nuns, about 2000 monks and 2000 nuns spread throughout 200 monasteries throughout the world.

Mysticism is harder to define. Even though it is a word that is used much in Christianity – we speak of mystical theology, mysticism, and mystics, we think of the Spanish Mystics Teresa and John of the Cross, or the English mystics, Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle, the Cloud of Unknowing - we find it hard to actually define it. A definition of mystical theology is: the study of the human experience of God and a definition of mysticism is: involving the explicit experience of the immediate presence of God. So it is to do with the experience of God in this life.

Another problem with the word mysticism is the tendency to equate it with unusual phenomena like ecstasies, trances, visions, but these are always peripheral to true mysticism, all the true mystics never sought anything like that and if they did experience them they often found it an embarrassment. A saying that is often said by older monks to over eager novices is that mysticism "begins in mist, is centred on I and ends in schism."

The mystical teaching of the Cistercians would be above all found in the writings of the first Cistercians monks, people like St Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St Thierry, Ailred of Rievaulx, Guerric of Igny and others. The Cistercians were originally a reform movement, started in 1098 in France, when a group of monks left the abbey of Molesme to found a new monastery with a simpler lifestyle and following the Rule of St Benedict more closely, stripped of all the accretions that had attached themselves to it over the years.

Their teachings are found in their sermons, treatises and commentaries. The Song of Songs in the Old Testament was one of their favourite books of the Bible and they never tired commentating on it. St Bernard’s great commentary runs to 86 substantial sermons and he only got as far as chapter 3 verse 1, not even half way through. The English Cistercians John of Ford and Baldwin of Ford continued this work after Bernard’s death in 1153.

The Cistercians saw the love story between the bride and the groom in the Song of Songs as representing the relationship between God and the soul.

Bride = the soul (or the Church) = anima

Groom = God = the Word

One verse they homed in on was 2:4. Our modern bibles say: He brought me to the banqueting hall and his banner over me was love but the old Latin bibles they would have used instead of saying his banner over me was love say He set love in order in me. That seems to be the whole key to Cistercian mysticism – the ordering of our love.

We do love, as humans we can’t do anything else, but we either love the wrong things or love the right things but love them too much or too little. Our love needs to be put in order.

Another important theme is that of image and likeness. Following Holy Scripture and the book of Genesis they believe that man is made in the image and likeness of God. After the fall of Adam we are still the image of God but we have lost our likeness. The spiritual/mystical path has as its goal to restore our likeness to God.

The Cistercians couldn’t get over the fact of the Incarnation, it fascinated them, the fact that God emptied himself to become man in Jesus Christ, the true humanity of Christ, a man like us in all things but sin. Pope Benedict XVI speaking on this aspect of St Bernard’s teaching in 2009 said:

In the extenuating battles between Nominalists and Realists two philosophical currents of the time the Abbot of Clairvaux never tired of repeating that only one name counts, that of Jesus of Nazareth. "All food of the soul is dry", he professed, "unless it is moistened with this oil; insipid, unless it is seasoned with this salt. What you write has no savour for me unless I have read Jesus in it" (In Canticum Sermones XV, 6: PL 183, 847).

For Bernard, in fact, true knowledge of God consisted in a personal, profound experience of Jesus Christ and of his love. And, dear brothers and sisters, this is true for every Christian: faith is first and foremost a personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, it is having an experience of his closeness, his friendship and his love. It is in this way that we learn to know him ever better, to love him and to follow him more and more. May this happen to each one of us!

Silence was another important element to the Cistercian mystical path. Not just silence to foster recollection but silence in order to "hear" God. They believed that hearing comes before sight. We will only see God in heaven but in this life we can ‘hear’ God (metaphorically speaking) speaking to our soul.

Simplicity was important – simplicity in liturgy, architecture, and life style. Whilst beautiful things – statues, stained glass, etc. - can lead us to God they can also be a hindrance getting in the way of a pure experience of God. In a sense the Cistercians were minimalists.

The Cistercians followed the Rule of St Benedict (c. 530) and so its teaching was foundational to them. Humility and obedience were essential elements of their spirituality and mysticism.

Manual work was held in high esteem by the Cistercians. St Bernard said he learnt more from the woods and the trees and the rocks than he ever did from books.

The Cistercians described the mystical experience as ‘Visits from the Word’ – no strange phenomena – but when prayer is easy and living the virtues then the Word (God) is with us. When prayer is difficult and living the virtues is a struggle then the Word has departed. We sense the Word’s presence and absence but we don’t know the moment when he came or went. The comings and goings of the Word are entirely up to God, though we can facilitate them by making ourselves ready.

No saint is as optimistic as St Bernard, no saint is as hopeful as he is, in the ability of man, wherever and whoever he is, to return to God. No one was beyond hope for Bernard. The most wretched sinner was seen by Bernard as a man with his foot on the first rung of the ladder back to God. For Bernard the man at the very bottom has nowhere else to go apart from up. No saint was ever as encouraging as St Bernard. In a very well known passage Bernard writes – and this comes after speaking about the heights of the spiritual life and union with God – he writes:

Every man – even if burdened with sin, enmeshed in vice, ensnared by the allurements of pleasures, caught in mud, fixed in mire, a slave to care, distracted by business, afflicted with sorrow, wandering and straying, filled with anxious forebodings and uneasy suspicions – every man, I say, standing thus under condemnation and without hope, has the power to turn and find it can not only breath the fresh air of the hope of pardon and mercy, but also dare to aspire to union with God…. Why should he not venture with confidence into the presence of him by whose image he sees himself honoured, and in whose likeness he knows himself made glorious? Why should he fear a majesty when his very origin gives him ground for confidence. (SC 83)

St Bernard certainly lived by this. In the well-known story, one day St Bernard was on his way to see Count Theobald and on the way he came across a crowd leading a man out to the gallows for execution. The man was Constantius and he was guilty of murder. We can imagine the scene, the baying crowds heaping insults on the murderer and the terrified man being dragged along. Bernard stopped and took the rope by which the man was tied and said to those in charge "Let me have this murderer, for I wish to take him and hang him with my own hands" (i.e. by living the penitential monastic life). Such was Bernard’s authority that those in charge let him take the man and Bernard took him to Clairvaux where he became a monk. Under Bernard’s guidance Constantius made atonement and reparation for his sins by a life of obedience and penance as a monk for the remaining thirty years of his life until his holy death. Constantius is remembered in the menology of our Order on June 20.

When the crowds looked into the terrified man’s face they saw an evil demon, when St Bernard looked into the man’s face he saw past his sins to a potential saint. Cardinal Basil Hume used to say (quoting Oscar Wilde): "Every sinner has a future and every saint has a past."

In his sermons on conversion he paints and all to familiar picture, when we try to convert we are beset with greater temptations. But we are not to despair. He writes: (If we ask) … "Is it possible for such wretchedness to make a person happy?" (I say to you) Whoever you are, if you are in this frame of mind, do not despair: it is mercy, not misery, that makes a person happy, but mercy’s natural home is misery. Indeed it happens that misery becomes the source of our happiness when humiliation turns into humility and necessity becomes a virtue. Sickness has real utility when it leads us to the doctor’s hands, and he whom God restores to health gains by having been ill. (Conversion 12)All I have been saying is from the past, from history, so I would like to speak about a modern Cistercian Mystic, Thomas Merton. In December it was the 46^th anniversary of his death.

Thomas Merton was born on 31 January 1915 in Prades in France in the eastern Pyrenees where his father was painting. His father, Owen, was a New Zealander, and his mother Ruth, was an American. When Merton was one year old the family moved to the US, first to Douglaston on Long Island then to the borough of Queens in New York. Merton had one brother, John Paul, who was a few years younger than he. When he was 6 Merton’s mother died and this was followed by a period of wandering for the family. First his father took him to Bermuda and then once again to France, where Merton went to school. In 1928, when Merton was 13, it was decided to continue his education in England and they moved to Ealing, W. London. He began school at Ripley Court, a prep school in Surrey, and then when he was 14 he moved to Oakham Public School in Rutland, just 25 miles away from where we are sitting now. After Oakham he gained entrance to Cambridge University where he studied modern languages French and Italian. At Cambridge something went wrong, though we are never told quite what it was, but to the end of his days Merton seemed to have a real hatred of Cambridge. After two years at Cambridge he transferred to Colombia University in NY and was much happier there reading English Literature and doing his Masters degree on William Blake. He lived in NY on and off for the next 6 years and during this period he converted to the Roman Catholic faith, being baptised on 16 November, the feast of St Gertrude, in 1938, when he was 23. Three years later he entered the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky in the U.S. and soon after began his prolific writing career.

There is no single opinion on Merton: some see him as the most important monk of the 20^th century, and indeed the most important monk of modern times, others see him as an anomaly. Whatever the opinion, though, it can’t be denied that he was a significant figure and still is. What his influence on the development of the Order was is hard to say; it could be argued he had an enormous influence on the Order, or equally, that he had no real lasting influence on the Order. My opinion at the moment is that he had a large influence on the Order, but not directly, but indirectly. I don’t think we can point to anything and say we do or don’t do this because of Thomas Merton, but I think the attitude and outlook of the Order has been very much shaped by Merton.Just recently I came across a piece of his writing that I think can serve us as a good meditation.

It is his first ever Christmas he spent in the monastery, so that is just after a few weeks, bearing in mind he entered on 10 December, Merton was waiting in church for the midnight Mass to begin and Merton writes in his journal:

Lord it is nearly midnight and I am waiting for you in the darkness and the great silence. I am sorry for all my sins. Do not let me ask any more than to sit in the darkness and light no lights of my own, and be crowded with no crowds of my own thoughts to fill the emptiness of the night in which I await you.… Your brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of you and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing you. If I imagine you, I am mistaken. If I understand you, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know you, I am crazy. The darkness is enough. (Bridges to Contemplative Living, edited by Montaldo & Toth, Ave Maria Press, 2010. p. 28)

Powerful words from someone who has just been in the monastery for two weeks.

Twenty four years later this basic theme and attitude is still there in his mature writings. In 1965 in the Climate of Monastic Prayer he writes:

Contemplative prayer is, in a way, simply the preference for the desert, for emptiness, for poverty. One has begun to know the meaning of contemplation when one intuitively and spontaneously seeks the dark and unknown path of aridity in preference to every other way. The contemplative is one who would rather not know than now. Rather not enjoy than enjoy. Rather not have proof that God loves him. He accepts the love of God on faith, in defiance of all apparent evidence. This is the necessary condition, and a very paradoxical condition, for the mystical experience of the reality of God’s presence and of his love for us. Only when we are able to ‘let go’ of everything within us, all desire to see, to know, to taste, and to experience the presence of God, do we truly become able to experience that presence with the overwhelming conviction and reality that revolutionize our entire life. (Ibid. p. 29)

I think that is a good and helpful passage. We all experience periods of aridity in the spiritual life but here Merton teaches that we have only begun to know the meaning of contemplation when we "intuitively and spontaneously seek the dark and unknown path of aridity in preference to every other way." So our aridity is not a hindrance on our journey to God but rather it is the way, the path, to Him.

Father Joseph has set the bar rather high for the speaker following him next week. Hang on a minute - that'll be me! *gulp*

ChristChurch is busy. We're used to the City of Leicester Singers rehearsing here on Monday evenings. Tonight, session four of an eight-week course on the history of the Old Testament is being held in the Vaughan Powell Room, next to ours - though no one can remember that being on last week. In the Worship Space (the main area of the church), Rev David Jennings, Canon Theologian, is delivering the monthly Leicester Theological Society: "Is the Bible the word of God? Discuss". Until this evening, Leicester Theological Society has held its monthly meetings on Fridays. I've often wanted to attend their lectures but they've either coincided with the kids staying with me or some other social commitment. But it's odd that they should be holding them here now on Monday evenings, when some of those who regularly attend the Christians Aware / Faith Awareness sessions would more than likely want to attend the lecture. For that matter, I'd fancy joining in the Old Testament history course too!

But it's a wee bit more than a minor irritation here this evening. In the Worship Space, David Jennings is using the microphone and PA and his talk is seeping into our room via a speaker that we can't switch off. It's turned down as low as it'll go but we can still hear every word, bubbling under Father Delargy's talk. When he's about to take us into a period of silent meditation, I break ranks and dash into the Worship Space to see if they can cut the sound to our room. But even though they're on to Q&A, there's no natural break in the flow that would allow me to interject. After standing there for the better part of ten minutes and failing to make myself seen or heard, I head back to our session. I have to say I'm relieved that that particular distraction won't be there next week.

INTER-FAITH FORUM IN RUTLAND PROVES A SUCCESS

It's been quite a few years since I last picked up a copy of the Rutland Times. I lived in Oakham for 16 years (1987-2003) and during those years the Rutland Times and I were on very good terms. I used to write regular small pieces about the sizeable and active Bahá'í community we had there at that time, as well as about the business of the Bahá'í Publishing Trust, where I worked then. I also wrote obituaries for the paper of John and Vera Long (who pioneered for the Bahá'í Faith in 1963, when they moved from Leicester to establish a new Bahá'í community there) when they both passed away in 1992. The Rutland Times also used to have occasional pieces about my Creative Writing classes and it once ran a profile piece about me. I don't have a copy of that any more; it would probably be embarrassing to read now. Those were more innocent times, in many ways.

Arriving at Launde Abbey today for the Christians Aware Christmas lunch, I find a copy of this week's edition of Rutland Times (edition published Saturday 8 December 2012) in the bar. Flicking through it, I'm glad to read the following short but pleasing article:

Inter-faith forum proves a success

A church welcomed people of several religions for an inter-faith forum.

Christians, Sikhs and Muslims joined together at St Andrew’s Church in Lyddington at the invitation of the Rev Jane Baxter.

Faith representatives included the newly-elected police and crime commissioner for Leicester and Rutland, Sir Clive Loader, and Judge Saleem Ahmed. 

Penny Escombe from Northamptonshire gave the opening address on spirituality in public life, followed by a talk from Chioneso Kulwant Kaur.

Former High Sheriff of Leicestershire, Resham Sandhu, said: “We are very fond of Rutland, and I hope we can repeat this successful event in Wing next year.”

Coincidentally, Resham's wife Surinder is here for the Christmas lunch, so I'm glad to be able to show the article to her.

Considering how much effort and resources we threw into Rutland promoting inter faith activities during the years I lived there (never mind the by the Bahá'ís who were there before and after that time) I am glad to see that the flame is being kept alive. I also joined in a Fellowship of Contemplative Prayer in Rutland, that was run by a small group of women from All Saints Parish Church in Oakham, that had an inter faith dimension. We once used extracts from Bahá'u'lláh's Hidden Words as the text for a session of contemplative prayer. I don't think that is still going, but it was a joy while it lasted.

Photo of St Andrew's Church, copyright Julian Dowse and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

FURY AT TV CHEF CLARISSA DICKSON WRIGHT'S COMMENTS ABOUT MUSLIMS IN LEICESTER

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Fury at TV chef Clarissa Dickson Wright's comments about Muslims in Leicester

A celebrity chef has come under fire after making "hurtful" comments about the city's Muslim community.

In her new book, Clarissa Dickson Wright describes a visit to Leicester "as one of the most frightening experiences of my life".

The 65-year-old dedicates a chapter of Clarissa's England: A Gamely Gallop Through the English Counties to each county in England, discussing their culinary, cultural and historical merits. On Leicestershire, she writes of the city's "ghetto".

She describes coming off the ring road to escape a traffic jam and becoming lost.

"I found myself in an area where all the men were wearing Islamic clothing and all the women were wearing burkas and walking slightly behind them," she wrote.

She said the men would not talk to her "because I was an English female and they don't talk to females they don't know".

She said: "Here I was, in the heart of a city in the middle of my own country, a complete outcast and pariah.

"If multiculturalism works, which I have always been rather dubious of, surely it must be multicultural and not monocultural.

"I can only hope that in generations to come there will be a merging of the cultures and not the exclusion zone that is the ghetto."

Ibrahim Mogra, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, and a city imam, said: "How is she judging an entire community on her one-off rare time of getting lost in Leicester?

"I find it very hurtful to read because everybody is working so hard to create a peaceful and happy Leicester.

"It showed a complete lack of appreciation of the fact we are almost two million in this country, doing our bit for our country.

"When she says that she was in the centre of a city in the centre of her own country, I take objection. This is also my country and this is also my city.

"I would like to call on Leicester people to be even more welcoming and hospitable than we've been so far."

Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: "That is the sort of thing that makes me very angry – when someone breezes in from outside and paints a picture of Leicester that does not have any foundation in reality."It may help sell books but it is cheap."

Councillor Manjula Sood, chairman of Leicester Council of Faiths, urged readers to ignore her comments.

"I don't believe a meeting with one person on one street should mean you can label a whole city," she said.

Both Coun Sood and Mr Mogra invited Ms Dickson Wright back to the city for an opportunity to change her opinions.

When contacted by the Mercury, the chef, who lives in Edinburgh, said: "I'm surprised any of the people who might object could read what I wrote as it is written in English.

"When you get to 65, you will think back on this conversation and I think you might find yourself in my frame of mind."

She said she had a lot of Muslim friends but her experience of Leicester was "unpleasant".

"It scared me and I am not scared easy," she said.

Asked why, she said: "Because it was part of my country that I was born in and there are a lot of radical Muslim preachers in this country.

"I was in London when the July 7 (2005 bomb attacks) happened and this to me was proof for those people who have been saying we're getting ghettoisation of Muslim areas.

"I have never believed that political correctness was a reason not to say what I have experienced."

She said she had "done a lot" for Leicestershire, campaigning for the protected geographical status of Melton pork pies and Stilton.

In her book, Ms Dickson Wright praised Melton's food festival, saying "it was just everything that a good food festival should be".

She also wrote about "charming" Market Harborough, and "pleasant" Oakham.

She is signing copies of her book at Northfield Farm Christmas Fair, in Cold Overton, on Saturday.

---

ON THE COUNTY

In her book, Ms Dickson Wright wrote:

Melton: I first came across it at the original Melton Mowbray Food Festival, which, in the first two years, was held in the cattle market in Melton Mowbray and was to my mind without doubt the best food festival in the country.

(It had) produce from the Asian communities, in particular in Leicester, and the West Indian community, and it was just everything that a good food festival should be.

Market Harborough: A charming old town.

Rutland: Rutland is a triumph and a lesson to us all.

Oakham: A pleasant town with all the right sort of shops and bookshops and I am always happy to visit it.

ON LEICESTER

I had one of the most frightening experiences of my life there.

Leicester has a very high Asian Muslim population and I found myself in an area where all the men were wearing Islamic clothing and all the women were wearing burkas and walking slightly behind them.

None of the men would talk to me when I tried to find out where I was and how to get out of there because I was an English female and they don’t talk to females they don’t know, while if the women could speak English they weren’t about to show it by having a word with me.

(She bought a map at a newsagents.) Somebody, very reluctantly, pointed to where I was and then I had to work out the rest myself.

I have many good acquaintances and even some friends among the Muslim community, yet here I was, in the heart of a city in the middle of my own country, a complete outcast and pariah.

If multiculturalism works, which I have always been rather dubious of, surely it must be multicultural and not monocultural.

However, everything has an upside and one of the results of this is that Leicester has a very good selection of Asian restaurants.

I can only hope that in generations to come there will be a merging of the cultures and not the exclusion zone that is the ghetto.

LEICESTER BAHÁ'ÍS CELEBRATE FIRST DAY OF RIDVÁN

At Quaker Meeting House, Queens Road, this afternoon, where local Bahá'ís are gathering to celebrate the First Day of Ridván.

Ridván is designated the most sacred period in the Bahá'í year (21 April to 2 May inclusive). The first, ninth and twelfth days are Holy Days on which work and study should be suspended. Bahá'í communities usually hold events to celebrate one or more of these days.

We hear a brief account of the life of Bahá'u'lláh (1817-92), founder of the Bahá'í Faith, concentrating on the twelve days he spent in the Najibiyyih Garden on the banks of the Tigris, before he left Baghdad after ten years in that city, moving on to Constantinople, the next stage in his 40-year exile. This is the period that is commemorated in the Festival of Ridván. It is particularly significant for Bahá'ís as it was during this time that Bahá'u'lláh revealed to his closest family and friends his station as the Manifestation of God in our time. The site of this declaration is known among Bahá'ís as the Garden of Ridván (Paradise).

We share devotional readings from the writings of Bahá'u'lláh, many on the significance of his historic declaration and of the importance of this period in the Bahá'í year. In these writings, Bahá'u'lláh often refers to himself symbolically as a nightingale, his stream of revelation compared to the bird's song. During this devotional section, a recording of the nightingale's song is played in the background. Strange that no one has thought to have done that at any Bahá'í devotional gathering I've attended over more than 30 years!

At the same time, the Leicester Lodge of the Theosophical Society is holding its regular monthly meeting in the Library of the Quaker Meeting House. There's a friendly historical association between Bahá'ís and the Theosophical Society. When 'Abdu'l-Bahá (1844-1921) visited western countries a hundred years ago, the Theosophical Society hosted many of his public talks and published them in its journals. The motto of the Theosophical Society - "There is no religion higher than truth" - is of obvious appeal to Bahá'ís. Our two groups mix in the kitchen that we're both using this afternoon. I chat with a few of their members and give one of them my card so that I can be kept informed of future activities.

As evidence of how the Bahá'í Faith embraces the many cultures from which its followers are drawn, after the devotional part of the meeting we have a go at some Scottish country dancing! Rarely have the Military Two-Step and the Gay Gordons been subjected to such indignities! But we have a good laugh trying - or at least, trying not to injure oursleves and each other!

One of the friends reminds me that Vera Long, the first person in Leicester to accept the Bahá'í Faith, passed away during this Ridván period 20 years ago. I knew Vera and her husband John during the time I lived in Oakham, from 1987. They moved to Oakham from Leicester in 1963, to become the first Bahá'ís there. John outlived Vera by a year. They both did an enormous amont for the Bahá'í Faith throughout the world and it's fitting that they be remembered here.

We're pleased to welcome Cllr Manjula Sood, former Lord Mayor of Leicester, current Asssistant City Mayor and chair of Leicester Council of Faiths as our special guest in this meeting. Manjula is in the photo above, with a few of the friends who came today (the rest were in the tranquil garden of the Quaker Meeting House, enjoying tea and sunshine).

REDP HUMAN RIGHTS SEMINAR: OAKHAM

At Voluntary Action Rutland, Oakham, this morning, delivering the second in a series of seminars for the Regional Equality and Divesrity Partnership (REDP) on the Human Rights Act 1998.

Strictly speaking, the part on the Human Rights Act is delivered by Chino Cabon from The Race Equality Centre (TREC), while I present a Beginners Guide to REDP.

The purpose of these seminars is to help Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations appreciate the relevance of the Human Rights Act 1998 to their mission, to understand its relationship to equality and diversity issues, as well enabling them to take part in the current debate about the UK withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rgihts and replacing it with a new UK Bill of Rights. These topics will feature prominently in REDP's next regional event, in Derby, 22 March.

Gathered in The Gower Centre (photo above) this morning are representatives of ten VCS organisations:

• Ann Craft Trust
• British Deaf Association
• CLASP: The Carers Centre
• Diocese of Peterborough
• Fawcett Society
• Leicester Secular Society
• Norton House
• Open Door Leicester
• South Lincolnshire VCS
• St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society

LEICESTER SPEAKS 2010: BAHÁ'Í / CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

Second of four meetings that Leicester Council of Faiths is presenting for Leicester Speaks (AKA Local Democracy Week). It's a dialogue between representatives of the city's Bahá'ís and Christians on the topic, "What our Community Brings to Leicester" at the Welcome Centre, 1100-1200.

Today, Minou Cortazzi (member of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Leicester and former Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths) speaks first. Beverley Farrand (from Leicester Cathedral Education team) follows with the Christian viewpoint. Interesting differences here in that one of these two communities is the longest-standing and largest of the eight on Leicester Council of Faiths, the other is the most recent arrival in the city and the smallest. (Though it's little known that, after the Christians and Jews, Bahá'ís were the first faith community to have their own official meeting place in Leicester; there was a Bahá'í centre on New Walk from 1957 to 1963, when the couple who owned the property, John and Vera Long, moved to Oakham to establish the first Bahá'í community there.)

I keep my ear open for common themes emerging from the conversation. There's a very clear common thread about the two communities contributing to the education of young people - empowering them to exercise some degree of meaningful control and direction over their own lives and to help those younger than them do something similar. At the Cathedral, of course, this is done on a considerably greater scale: last year, more than 2,000 children and young people undertook educational visits there on official school trips. Many of these involved participation in the multi-media "Breathe" activity, which is usable for children and young people from a variety of backgrounds and traditions. But despite their comparatively meagre resources, the local Bahá'ís have made whole-hearted efforts in providing spiritual and moral education not only to their own children and young people, but also extending this to similar age groups in some of the deprived areas of the city.

A few days after this event, the Leicester Speaks website carried a blog entry from Kenton Hall, who attended this session in the Welcome Centre as part of the multimedia team who are making a record of the week-long event as a whole. I was really taken with what Kenton had to say about this dialogue session and asked his permission to reproduce his blog entry on this page. He said yes, so here it is below in its entirety.

Cards on the table time. I am not a man of faith. Okay, I occasionally veer towards the belief that a centuries-old being in a bow tie is whizzing round the universe in a police box righting wrongs, but that’s as near as I get these days. The vast majority of my truly religious experiences have resulted from my being chivalrous enough to spring for dinner and a movie. However, I was brought up to be very religious indeed and if there is one aspect of that which has never left me or, at very least, for which I have occasionally pined, it has been the sense of community that comes from shared belief: shared goals, shared ideals, a shared sense of the shape of the universe.

Nonetheless, it has been of increasing concern to me – as I’m sure it has been to many others – that when any group of people subscribe to a particular set of beliefs, there too often follows in their wake a sense of entitlement, a sense that if they are right then others must be definitively wrong. And it is this that has led to the violence and dissent we too often associate with organised religion.

So, when I was asked to cover one of a series of events in which members of various faiths were invited to speak, in dialogue, with the idea of exploring common ground, rather than differences, I was understandably dubious.

The Leicester Council of Faiths is an organisation which strives – by its very remit – to promote understanding and cooperation between the many faiths – Christian, Muslim, Jain, Hindu, Jewish, Ba’hai, Sikh – that make up Leicester’s spiritual life.

Today’s event was a discussion between representatives of the Christian Church and the Ba’hai Faith, outlining the positive aspects and programmes provided by each to the community at large.

In an age where even the word “religion” is too often a harbinger of violence, disorder and war, it was reassuring to see such a positive spin being put on proceedings.  And while I may, personally, not see or understand the need for an organised belief system, it is difficult to argue against the good work presented in evidence today. Impossible, in fact.

Nor can it be considered in any way a bad thing to see disparate groups, with different and occasionally contrary cultures and backgrounds, coming together in the quest for commonality and the promise of a brighter, less contentious future.

Whatever your feeling about religion in general, or any particular faith specifically, the point of today – as indeed of this entire week of Leicester Speaking – is to allow all those good, concerned people out there to hold up their hand and say “This is what we are doing for our city’s well-being. Care to join us?”

I remain unconvinced by the form, but I am utterly convinced by the ideals and the motivations of the people concerned. And when we accept people for who they are and what they do, rather than what they are or where they’ve come from, then we have a chance at putting our quarrels behind us and moving forward as a city, as a community, as a race.

And to that I intone a hearty – if secular – Amen.

Kenton Hall

debrief

At Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) this morning, to meet with Carolyn, Kelly and Laura to debrief on REDP's first two involvement events last week, in Nottingham and Oakham and to prepare for the next two this week, in Leasingham and Market Harborough. On the whole, we're happy with how it's going, though there's always room for improvement. We rejig timings of some parts of the day. Later on, the Market Harborough event is cancelled when we decide that those who have registered can be better distributed among some of the other dates and venues. We're breaking new ground with these meetings in many ways and thinking out of the box.

REDP involvement event: Oakham

To Oakham this morning, for the second of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership's twelve "Involvement Events" spread across the East Midlands over seven weeks. Once again, I'm chairing the event as well as making a presentation on the Equality Bill. Interesting comparison with the first of these events, in Nottingham on Tuesday: the region's biggest city, followed by one of its market towns, a rural centre. We have attendees representing Voluntary Action Rutland, Rutland County Council, Knossington Grange School, East Midlands Ambulance Service Pacesetters programme, Faiths Forum for the East Midlands.

I lived in Rutland for 16 years, from 1987 till 2003 - all but the first six months of them in Oakham. I moved there from a pretty rough-and-ready area in the west of Scotland, was a bit of culture shock. All the more so, since the first six months was spent in a converted stable block on the grounds of Exton Hall! While the Oakham years were something of a mixed experience, I've more recently come to look on the place with some affection again (and my older son, Alastair, is based there).

Counter-intuitive as it might be, the success of these events is not being measured by the number of attendees. REDP is in the process of developing something new, an innovation where nothing of its type existed before. Engagement of new groups and individuals, planting the flag in places whcih are often neglected, going out to the people we want to meet rather than having them come to us - these aren't normal practice, but it's the way we have to do it if this project is going to work.

Ange, from the Women's Resource Centre and National Equalities Partnership is our guest speaker in the afternoon, though I'm not able to stay and hear her. I have to get back to Leicester for the meeting at SDSA.

Find out more about the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership:
http://www.redp.org.uk/

Find out more about Voluntary Action Rutland:
http://www.rutnet.co.uk/pp/gold/viewgold.asp?ID=46

Find out more about the Women's Resource Centre:
http://www.wrc.org.uk/

Find out more about the National Equalities Partnership:
http://www.wrc.org.uk/what_we_do/our_projects/national_equality_partnership/default.aspx

SICK NOTE

Today I should have been attending a meeting of the Regional Infrastructure Consortium (RIC) in Oakham this morning with Laura Horton, on behalf of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP). I should also have been delivering an afternoon's training on Religion or Belief to CCP in Leicester. But Gracie has swine flu and has to stay off school. Her mum, stepdad, her nan and I have divvied up the week among us and there's no one else can have her today but me, so she's been dropped off at my house. She was pretty rough two days ago when I last saw her, but she got the anti-virals quickly and she's quite a bit better today. REDP has arranged for the afternoon's training to be delivered by Manny Barot, who has worked for the Beth-Shalom Holocaust Centre in Newark. I've sent my own PowerPoint presentation to Manny and passed on to him the leaflets, postcards, bookmarks etc that I'd normally use on such an occasion. We talk on the phone for half an hour or so this morning so there's a high level of agreement on the format and purpose of the presentation. I'm happy that he's the one who has been asked to do this in my stead.