This service was from a long long time ago, it
seems. Before, frankly, I was very good
at all! But I decided to put really old
stuff here as well, because progress is progress.
We lit the chalice – obviously.
But I didn’t write the words down that we used . . . did I mention it
was a very long time ago?
The story was this:
The sermon went like this:
This morning seems a good morning to be
talking about Freedom (as if there were ever a morning which isn’t), given that
it’s the first day of “smoke free England”.
There is, of course, a view that this new legislation is a curtailment
of smokers’ rights. But there is also a
view – and it’s mine – that’s it’s a declaration of the rights of non-smokers.
In fact, far be it from me to use this as a forum for gloating, but “hurrah”!
And that’s – if you’ll excuse the slightly
stretched and obscure pun – the rub.
Like so many any other issues about freedom, it’s not a universal
liberation. Right or wrong, fair or not,
in the interests of public health or just in the cause of a nanny state, some
people are now unable to do something they could do this time yesterday. Freedom is seldom without a price.
The reading Helaina shared with us is from
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. If you haven’t read it, read it. I will try not to spoil the plot too much: as
well as being a horrifying, sobering read, it is a brilliantly crafted
read. Written in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the
Republic of Gilead, in what is now Massachusetts, in a then-future late
twentieth century.
The name Gilead is, of course, biblical,
and refers – amongst other things to the hymn that says “There is a balm in Gilead that makes the spirit whole. There is a balm in Gilead that heals the
sin-sick soul”. Society in Gilead is
based on a bastardised version of a selection of bible passages, dissent is
punishable by death; women’s rights have been suddenly and catastrophically
removed, and the enforcement of rigid social roles is swift and sickeningly
severe. Women are no longer allowed to
work or to own money. These changes
happen suddenly, with women being sent home from work and their bank accounts
being transferred to their husbands, fathers or partners. Other changes happen slowly – as the
protagonist says “nothing changes
instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before
you knew it”.
Women’s fertility has also become a matter
of state regulation. All fertile women
(for in the book there are precious few of them) become ‘handmaids’ and are
assigned to a high ranking male official, and their one role in life is to bear
him children. If they fail to do so,
they are exiled to the colonies, where, like other infertile women they die a
slow and painful death. There are, of
course, other roles for women: wives,
“marthas”, who are domestic servants, and daughters. There is no movement between roles, and every
item of a woman’s clothing denotes her rank.
Handmaids wear red robes, with wings to prevent eye contact. Every aspect of life is ruled and regulated –
conversations are limited to platitudes, the only entertainment available is
public executions and – more rarely – public birthings.
Nearly as horrifically to most of us, all
form of reading matter is banned. Not
just magazines, or books, or anything-except-the-bible, but all reading matter. Shops no longer have names, just pictures of
what they sell. The protagonist finds a
cushion, embroidered with the word “faith”, and this becomes her greatest treasure,
not because of the illegal luxury of softness, but because of the illegal
luxury of words.
What is perhaps most frightening about
Atwood’s dystopian vision is that none of it is entirely made up. There is nothing in the novel, from public
participation in executions to a warped allegiance to a deliberately biased form
of the bible that cannot be traced to some real civilisation.
But what is also frightening is that Atwood
manages to make some aspects of the regime attractive. Certainly, the first time I read the book, at
about 18, I didn’t find it entirely negative.
The order, the surface calm, the assigned roles, the lack of
responsibility to do anything other than what you are told, all hold a certain
charm.
There is, indeed, a balm in Gilead, for
those who chose to accept blindly, although it would be a stretch to say that
it either makes the wounded whole or heals a sin-sick soul. The film version, a few years later, is
certainly visually stunning, and if you can ignore the underlying brutality, it
is easy to swallow the promise of “freedom from”. And I think we can all sometimes be guilty of
allowing ourselves to ignore the underlying brutality.
Because “freedom from” is a very tempting
proposition. I think at some level we
would all like to be free from responsibility, to be free from having to
decide, to have someone tell us that if we do so-and-so we will be fine and
safe and rewarded. Freedom from can
certainly be easier. I have always been,
on one level, slightly envious of people who can just swallow a dogma whole and
live by it. Although, intellectually, we
know that mind control is a bad thing, that brainwashing is wrong and that
cults – religious or otherwise – are dangerous, there must be something to be
said for having your every decision made for you, your every belief fed to you
and your every question answered for you.
Just think of all the decisions you’ve had
the freedom to make, just this morning, just up to now. When, and indeed whether, to wake up; whether
to get up then, or turn over for five more minutes or an hour or the rest of the
day; what to have for breakfast, or not to have breakfast; tea, or coffee, or
juice – herbal, fruit, earl grey or bog standard – cup or mug, milk or not,
sugar or not; whether to leave the empty cup on the table, or stack it for
later, or wash it up. Whether to put the
TV on, or the radio, or some music, or nothing.
Whether to shower, bath or wash at the sink, whether to wash your hair,
what soap or shampoo or shower gel or perfume to wear. What clothes to put on. Whether to iron them, or wear yesterday’s, or
wear whatever’s clean or worry about the holes in them or whether you wore the
same thing last week. Whether to come to
church or not. Whether to leave on time,
or a bit late. Whether you really need
your coat, or your umbrella. Which route
to use to get here. Whether to listen to
music on your journey, or talk to someone, or think, or let your mind drift, or
make a shopping list in your head. Where
to sit. Who to chat to, or whether to
chat to anyone. Whether to help light
the chalice, whether to light a candle, whether it should be a joy or a
concern. Whether to join in the hymns,
whether to sing the melody or a harmony.
Whether to join in with the prayers and meditations, or to think your
own thoughts or to pray your own prayers.
Whether to listen to the technical mastery of the musical interlude, or
let the feelings wash over you, or chatter, or meditate or think or ignore
it.
And that’s just a couple of hours’ worth of
decisions we were all free to make.
Stretch those decisions out over a day, then a week, then a month and a
year and a lifetime, and our freedom is really quite mind-boggling. It is, as the Ralph Waldo Emerson said “awful
to look into the mind of man and see how free we are” – bearing in mind that
when Emerson was writing, awful meant “full of awe”, not “bad”.
Those are exactly the sorts of freedoms
that the protagonist of The Handmaid’s
Tale gets the most emotional about.
She talks clinically about the lack of financial freedom, and with a
perhaps necessary detachment about her role as a child bearer for another
woman’s husband, but with loss and hurt and love about postcards and the
ability to write on them.
It is not for nothing that the highest form
of state sanction in this country – and to my mind, any country that dares to
call itself civilized – is the removal of freedom. The worst punishment a court can hand down in
the UK, is that of imprisonment. And
whatever the arguments about lengths of sentences, and ease of life in today’s
prisons, and whether prison even works, one thing is clear to me – that
convicted criminals are sent to prison as
a punishment, not to be punished. The lack of freedom is the punishment. Almost
every one of those daily freedoms I’ve listed is removed from almost all
prisoners.
And it’s not only in the legal and penal
system that removal of freedom is that last resort – anyone who is deemed to
need psychiatric treatment against their will is subject to a very thorough
assessment before it can be decided – by a panel of people including medical
staff, psychiatric staff and social workers – that they should have their
liberty removed. It is never something
which is done lightly, although, like convictions and imprisonment, it is too
often done wrongly or unjustly.
Those small daily freedoms we have may seem
trivial. But their very triviality is
what makes them precious. I am aware
that I’ve not mentioned the history of slavery and abolition, or modern day
slavery, or sex trafficking or sweatshops or economic or political
freedom. Those subjects are too huge to
cover here, and need services of their own.
Some are soon to have them.
So, where does our Unitarianism fit in all
this? We are certainly not offered the
freedom from responsibility and freedom from decision-making I mentioned
earlier. We cannot come and sit here,
Sunday after Sunday, in the calm and trusting knowledge that we are being told
what is right and true and eternal. We
can’t come and sit here and be told what to do and what not to do and where to
go and who to trade with and who to associate with and know that if we go along
with that we’ll be okay in this world and more importantly in another one. It would be categorically impossible to
believe in or agree with everything everyone says who stands up here. We would have to be able to hold directly
contradictory opinions at the same time.
If we have a moral or theological or spiritual problem or issue to
discuss, we cannot turn to our book of dogma and find an answer, or turn to an
ordained leader and be given an answer.
Unitarianism offers us freedom from other
things – freedom from the expectation to believe in things we may find hard to
swallow, freedom from the obligation to believe the same thing consistently, freedom
from an expectation that we will trust anyone’s word and experience as being
more valid than our own. And it offers
us freedom to as well: freedom to
think, and to reason, and to come to our own conclusions and form our own
beliefs - and crucially, to express
those conclusions and beliefs; freedom to doubt and to be discouraged and to
get fed up and to disagree; freedom to participate in whatever way we feel
comfortable, freedom to be busy and active or to simply participate by being
here.
But those freedoms are also
responsibilities. If we have freedom of
choice, and freedom of thought and freedom of belief, then I believe we have a
responsibility to use them. I won’t say
to use them wisely, because we can
never know until afterwards whether we’ve chosen wisely or not. We are lucky enough to live in a society with
a relatively well functioning democracy, and in which we are entitled to
vote. It is foolish of us not to, or at
least, if we don’t, to have a good reason not to. It is also, given the sacrifices that have
been made to win the vote – and not just for women – rather rude. By the same token, we are fortunate – or
wise, or brave – enough to have found our spiritual or worshipping home here,
and it would be foolish and irresponsible of us to throw that away by not, at
least, ensuring that we do think our own thoughts and find our own
beliefs.
We are all, I hope, aware of the evils of
slavery and oppression and totalitarianism and imprisonment and restrictions on
religious expression. And we are all, I
hope, aware of the blessing and grace that is our freedom from those
evils. But I am aware that I, for one,
am not always fully conscious and appreciative of the tiny, trivial freedoms
that I enjoy and that others do not. And
I believe that it would do none of us any harm to start looking at those
freedoms and enjoying them consciously.
We sang:
Life that maketh all things new.
We shall be strong and free
Faith of the free
For the healing of the nations
With joy we claim the growing light
Our readings were:
From Trainspotting,
John Hodge:
Choose
Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a big television,
choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers.
Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed
interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends.
Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire
purchase in a range of fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a
Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing,
spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing junk food into your mouth. Choose your
future. Choose life
From A Handmaid’s
Tale, Margaret Atwood
In returning my pass, the guard bends his head to try
to look at my face.
I raise my head a little, to help him, and he sees my
eyes, and I see his, and he blushes. He is the one who turns away.
It’s an event.
A small defiance of rule, so small as to be undetectable, but such
moments are the rewards I hold out for myself, like the candy I hoarded as a
child, at the back of a drawer.
Such moments are possibilities, tiny peepholes.
It’s hotel rooms I miss. The fresh towels, the wastebaskets gaping
their invitations. I was careless, in
those rooms. There were postcards, with
pictures on them, and you could write on the postcards and send them to anyone
you wanted. It seems like such an
impossible thing now, like something you’d make up.
I think about laundromats. What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging
pants. What I put into them: my own
clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself.
I think about having such control.
There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt
Lydia. Freedom to, and freedom
from.
In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.
And from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
My
life is a May game. I will live as I
like. I defy your strait-laced, weary,
social ways and modes. Blue is the sky,
green the fields and groves, fresh the springs, glad the rivers, and hospitable
the splendour of sun and star. I will
play my game out. And if any shall say
me nay, shall come out with swords and staves against me, come and
welcome. I will not look grave for such
a fool’s matter. I cannot lose my cheer
for such trumpery. Life is a May game
still.
Freedom
is necessary. If you please to plant
yourself on the side of Fate and say, Fate is all, then we say, a part of fate
is the freedom of man. Forever wells up
the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul.
Intellect annuls fate. So far as
a man thinks, he is free.
It
is awful to look into the mind of man and see how free we are, to what
frightful excesses our vices may run under the whited wall of a respectable
reputation. Outside, among your fellows,
among strangers, you must preserve appearance, a hundred things you cannot do;
but inside, the terrible freedom!
There were spoken prayers and a
benediction, but neither of them were orginal and I can’t find them, so they’re
not here!
