Nelson and Brexit

Inevitably on such a momentous day as Brexit Day the mind turned to Anniversaries.

If you are of a Brexiteer mindset the gift to Brexit Day appeared to lie in the very heart of London.  For January 31st was the anniversary of the unveiling of Nelson'e column (1867) in Trafalgar Square.  

And what greater affirmation of Britain's independence from - and hostility to - European domination could Brexit Day want than that?

Nelson's story is a lot more complicated than that though.  It illustrates why it is hopeless to deal with issues like Brexit in a binary way.

Here is one of his later life signatures, and following his appointment as a Duke in Italy he proudly added Bronte - he was Duke of Bronte - to his signature until the day he died.

Europe, for Nelson, was a mixture of good and bad; sometimes an enemy, sometimes a friend - both his proud boast in Naples and his personal nemesis at Trafalgar.

For every Christian this world is always something like that.  As 'strangers in the world' and citizens of another (heavenly) country the journey here is filled with good and bad.  Our Lord was feted at feasts and crucified at Calvary, listened to by crowds and disobeyed by close disciples.

No delight or disaster in this world is of the depth of being rightly or wrongly positioned for the world to come.

Brexit and the folk on Thorney Island

Brexit has preoccupied another week of UK news, and it has taken (briefly) the horror of the New Zealand terrorist attack to dislodge it.  Brexit has proved and is proving a very thorny issue for the House of Commons.  Just round the corner is a street that perhaps makes that point:

Perhaps a Lord Thorney was a nobleman, or a mayor of Westminster or the owner of a big house in the street.  But no, this street is named after the island once nearby - Thorney Island.

The island was formed by the Tyburn River dividing as it entered the River Thames. It was surrounded by mud, almost fully flooded when the rivers overfilled and it was populated, we assume, by much wild, thorny vegetation.

Its inhospitable, isolated setting explains why it was chosen by the monks of the first millennium for their house and abbey.  The abbey was unsurprisingly called Thorney Abbey.  In relation to the East Minster in London, this abbey became known as West Minster and, as you know, the name has stuck.  A king added a Palace and then a Parliament arrived.

The monks, to put it mildly, would be surprised to find the Westminster of today.  Perhaps, though, they would not be surprised to find that all the collected wisdom of the 650 (actually 642 thanks to Sinn Fein abstentionists and the ever present spectre of death) souls who famously occupy the spot amounts to nothing much more than the thorns they cut down long ago.  The journey from prayer to palace to parliament to pandemonium is an invitation to complete the cycle back to prayer.

Happy Birthday Pratibha!

Today is Pratibha Patil's birthday.

Pratibha was India's President and to date the only woman to have held that office.

As our Parliament - of which we are supposed to be so proud - mires itself ever more deeply in the swampy jungle of Brexit two of her comments (about the Parliament of India) are poignant, to say the least:

It is important that the decorum and dignity of the House is upheld at all times.  The image of Parliament in the public mind should be one where proceedings, debates and discussions take place with a view to resolve issues through a constructive and co-operative approach.

Parliament of the country is the repository of the sovereign will of the people and its successful functioning is the responsibility of both the Government and Opposition.

Quite.

Enduring Politics

The current politics of Britain are as amazing as anything in my memory: the leader of the Conservative Party exiting when not required to do by his parliamentary colleagues and the leader of the Labour Party refusing to leave when told to go by his parliamentary colleagues.

In Christian Ministry I have never been much attracted to siding publicly with party politics and when I read the rants of Church leaders that do I am even less inclined.  But as David Cameron left Downing Street yesterday - unable to move straight into his £3.5 million West London home because it is currently rented out at £7,800 plus per month, and humming happily as he returned into the PM's house after making his public announcement - it illustrates a vast contemporary trend that stretches deep into the life of modern Britain.  It is a trend further illustrated in the public faces of the referendum campaign who quickly disappeared from view, at least until Boris was resurrected last evening.  When the going get's tough the tough just go.

Into this whirling world of 'I'm off now - byes' has stepped Jeremy Corbyn.

He represents many strange anomalous things over against proper contemporary politics.  Teresa May decimated the front bench of politicians she sat with but (unless another surprise is in store) she will incongruously face Mr Corbyn at her first Prime Minister's Questions.

Quite a lot of leadership theory seems to revolve around instant departure; in the business world as well as politics, in the church as well as in education.  Yet Mr Corbyn, together ironically (he's a republican) with the Queen represents those outdated qualities of sticking at it.  As such they haunt the swirling world of proper 21st century leaders with the potential value of enduring.

Christians may think all sorts of things about all of this.  But at least they should recognise that the apparently quirky quality of enduring is, in their discipleship and in the church, a very divine quality.