Faith and life in Britain 2

Just a reminder that the next lecture in the Cardinal’s Faith and Life in Britain series is tonight at 7pm (BST). The transcript and video will hopefully be online shortly afterwards. Tonight’s speaker is Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, who will be speaking on Faith and the Media.

Will try to comment, but am working over the weekend so it might have to wait til Sunday.

What I read (magazines/periodicals)

I can’t decide to write magazines, journals or periodicals – I’m a librarian and I still get confused. Here are my favourites

SFX
I love science fiction (as you may have guessed from my favourite tv programmes). I love films, tv programmes, books, comics – lots. I like reading SFX because it’s written by people who are actually into all this themselves and because it covers so much. Just look at the home page – film, tv and book reviews!

Psychologies
Unfortunately, the Psychologies web page isn’t working at the moment. I like reading the magzine – not really sure why. I usually skim the issue, and become fixated on a phrase or sentence, and think and think….

The Ecologist
Again, just full of lots of interesting articles and info that I would never think to look for but am glad to know. I especially like the green pages, which contains eco-friendly products, events, what vegetables are in season etc.

New Scientist and Scientific American
When I was applying to study Maths and Physics at university, we were encouraged to read these journals. I still do, on and off, or when the cover story is about something I’m interested in. I like the Last Word in New Scientist and the cosmology Scientific American specials.

What is meditation?

Last night I began to watch Alternative therapies: Meditation on BBC iPlayer. For some reason, the connection ceased about 15 minutes or so into the programme. The premise of the programme (and indeed the series) seems to be the scientific exploration of alternative therapies, in this case, meditation.

It began with a scientist (didn’t catch her name or speciality) travelling to a Buddhist monastery to learn/experience meditation. The scientist seemed to really enter into the experience and practise of meditation, and was moved by said experience. She was about to go off and look at meditation from a scientific approach – and that’s when the programme cut out on me.

I was really struck by the way language was used to talk about meditation, and especially why it may be important, or a subject worth our attention. I actually took notes on it. The scientist began the programme by listing all the things that meditation can do for us – the problems ‘it’ can solve and how ‘it’ can help us.

It seemed to be suggesting that meditation is an independent entity, that can do things on its own – like a person. Whereas the monk who explained the how-to of meditation was clear that meditation is something that WE do, a technique we practice. He said that the benefit of meditation was that it “makes you a better human”.

He gave some really clear instructions on this practice that I think are helpful. After the usual positioning and stillness, they were

1. to pay attention to something, usually breathing
2. thoughts will appear to come out of nowhere – just let them come and go
3. concentrate on how you feel about someone you love unconditionally

I am bothered the language used.

In the programme, there are two distinct approaches to meditation. In one approach, meditation is in charge. In the other, I am in charge. Meditation does things or I do things. Meditation is responsible or I am responsible.

Meditation is not an independent entity, therefore it cannot ‘do’ or ‘be responsible’ any more than a table or music can ‘do’ or ‘be responsible’. I am the independent entity – we are the independent entities. We do and we are responsible.

Therefore, meditation cannot solve our problems. We solve our problems. Meditation may be a practice, an action we do that helps us – because through practising meditation we become better humans, more ourselves. We are responsible. We do. We be.

Technology, entertainment and design (TED)

Came across a site new to me today called TED – Technology, Entertainment, Design. I like the tag line – Ideas worth spreading.

I poked around the site. I really like that the site contains videos of talks from TED Conferences – that the content is available freely, not hidden away or restricted, but open to be found.

I’ve only watched a couple of videos so far, but I found them really thought provoking.

Faith and Globalisation (Cardinal Lecture 1)

Overall, I think I liked Tony Blair’s lecture on Faith and Globalisation, the first of the Faith and Life in Britain series. I liked the problems of living life in Britain today as a regular person of faith:

First, you may be considered weird.

…

Second, there is an assumption before you take a decision, you engage in some slightly cultish interaction with your religion … people assume that your religion makes you act … at the promptings of an inscrutable deity, free from reason.

…

Third, you want to impose your religious faith on others.

…

Fourth, you are pretending to be better than the next person.

…

And finally, and worst of all, that you are somehow messianically trying to co-opt God to bestow a divine legitimacy on your politics.

Good points that Tony Blair made in the lecture:

What faith means for people in faith – its about truth. Being in faith is not something separate from our day to day lives, but rather“It is the well spring of them, the font, the origin, the thing that makes these people who they are and what they do”.

“… the dividing line is often less between traditional left vs. right, but more about open vs. closed.” I think this is an important point. There are lots of approaches to life that individuals are so attached to that they become closed to seeing any value in any other approach – religious belief, scientific method, hedonism, money, security. Religious belief seems to be the most dis-respected, for the reasons listed about and because the other approaches are usually more common and/or seen as ‘more rational’.

As the lecture goes on, the idea suggested seems to be that a world without religion or a spiritual dimension will be a lesser world. I think this is true too. As Pope Benedict states in Spe Salvi

If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man’s ethical formation, in man’s inner growth, then it is not progress at all… (SS 22)

There is progress in so many fields – science, engineering, politics, literature, whatever. If the progress made is not in all areas of life, then it’s not overall, complete progress – it’s lopsided.

Tony Blair suggests that it is a basic human need/wish to be aware of something outside ourselves, to reach out to the other, to “live with a purpose beyond ourselves alone”, and that being in faith enables us to do this. I suppose the question is, is progress being made in this field? Do the other approaches to life help us to live with this purpose?

I think the lecture was a little simplistic in places. I’m not sure why it a “powerful inter-faith encounter” is more of a symbol than an positive encounter between people of different ethnicities, or political ideologies or just other differences.

I struggled with the use of the words ‘faith’, ‘religion’, ‘believe’ and ‘belief’ in the lecture – I struggle with these words anyway, but they were a little more problematic than usual in this. These words are often used interchangeably, or with great conviction in ways I don’t quite understand. I think that’s part of my difficulty with any discussion of religion, belief or faith in the media at the moment.

So, I liked it. And next week, will be Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC speaking on Faith and the Media. Can’t wait.

What I watch (shows that are no more)

To TV programmes that are no more because they were cut short (cancelled) or reached a natural end (but live on in the DVD collections of those that loved them).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
What can I say? I loved this programme – it inspired me so much, because Buffy was approximately the same age as me. When the stories were about high school, I was in secondary school. When the stories were about ‘college’, I was at university. I studied maths in a really snobby, male dominated department after attending an all girls school for 7 years – what a shock to the system. Watching Buffy helped me to realise that I was capable and independent, and as entitled to my place on the degree programme as anyone else. It was entertaining. It was funny. It broke the mould with an almost dialogue-free episode (Hush, Season 4), a music free episode about death (The Body, Season 5) and a musical episode (Once more with Feeling, Season 6).

Father Ted
Ah, Father Ted (imagine an Irish accent). A programme about three Irish priests and their housekeeper, on a small island off the west coast of Ireland. We weren’t allowed to watch it for ages because my Mother thought it was blasphemous. It turned out to be hilarious and so, so, true. Many, many classic moments (I think I’ll have to do a whole other post dedicated to Fr. Ted). Favourite line (Fr. Ted talking to Fr. Dougal about small plastic cows): These are small… but the ones out there are far away. Small… far away… ah forget it! I think most episodes are available to watch online via the Channel 4 Father Ted microsite. I recommend all, especially the Lent episode ‘Cigarettes, Alcohol and Roller blading’.

Firefly
Another great programme from Joss Whedon. Full of contradictions that somehow coexisted and made sense. 13 quality episodes AND a full length movie, Serenity (I want to say ‘feature film’ – is that a better expression?).

Not to mention Space Above and Beyond, Odyssey 5, Farscape to name a few – can you tell I love sci-fi yet? I think I may have to post more about these shows

New Bible TV series

The BBC has announced that it is about to make a 6 part series on stories from the Bible. I really enjoyed The Passion, broadcast over Easter. I found it really thought provoking, as it focussed more on the politics of the time, which I was not so familiar with.

Hope this series is as thought provoking!

Video

After an hour, I can’t work out how to put a video in a post. But, I have managed to put one in my sidebar (!).

So, to the right – Tony Blair on Faith and Globalisation.

Nothing?

Nothing.

I’ve just done a quick surf around a few sites that I regularly get the latest news from. There is no mention of Tony Blair’s Faith and Globalisation lecture anywhere obvious. It’s now the fourth story on BBC News’ politics page.

The video is now up on the website though.

The Catholic Herald has an article, the title of which tells you the focus – Anti-war protesters target Blair at Cathedral. Oh okay, but this paragraph explains why (italics my emphasis):

The former Prime Minister was due to speak on the subject of “faith and globalisation” at Westminster Cathedral as The Catholic Herald went to press.

So this is the article that will appear in the paper, which comes out tomorrow (and I’ll probably get on Sunday). Hmm, little confused as to the point of having a website if it can’t be more current. Oh, well.

According to Total Catholic (which publishes the Universe and the Catholic Times), Blair calls for religion to be “rescued from extremism”. I’ll be interested to see if this is the article that appears in the Universe, or if it is a pre-event one.

Brief pre-lecture page – Blair speech will stress role of religion – on Catholic World News.

I feel a little disappointed that this is it – but what did I really expect? There is a lot of actual news today, and political stories as well. The Prime Minister’s expenses are about to be revealed and the Mayor of London has 5 children instead of 3.

One last shot – I decided to check the Daily Telegraph. Not my favourite paper, but they have a blog called Holy Smoke which I’ve recently come across. And success – there is an article: Tony Blair reveals why he refused to ‘do God’.

Is there anything out there that I’ve missed?

UPDATE

Have just read a post about the lecture over at Solomon, I have surpassed thee, a blog by Mgr Mark Langham about Westminster Cathedral. As well as highlighting an article about the lecture from the Independent, it’s interesting to hear about the event from an ‘inside’ perspective. Thanks, Mgr Mark!

Initial responses to ‘Faith and Globalisation’

I think I may be becoming obsessed. I stayed up late, way past my bedtime, just to see if there was any media coverage of Tony Blair’s lecture on Faith and Globalisation at Westminster Cathedral this evening.

Nothing – as far as I can tell. I’ve spent the last couple of hours flicking between BBC News 24, Sky News and Question Time/This Week on BBC1. The only reference I found was a throwaway comment (and clip) on This Week.

Currently (at approx 00:44 BST) ‘Blair urges bigger role for faith‘ is the 6th (and final) item in the ‘Other top stories’ column on the BBC News front page, which makes it the 9th ‘top story’ overall.

No reference on the Sky News front page.

There is a headline on the Guardian’s website under ‘More News’, which I think makes ‘Blair: Help religion become a force for good‘ the 14th news story on the page.

The Guardian

The transcript and debate (?) are available here. Positive comments so far. Reading the transcript is on my to-do list for tomorrow.