Below are the 13 most recent journal entries recorded in punkquaker's LiveJournal:

Saturday, June 24th, 2006
10:36 pm	Memory, Judaism and New Ground It was another one of those of those Sabbaths, the kind that have the capacity to lift you out of "normal time" and set one in a different mindset all together. I suppose that's the real joy of it. I got up early for the service yesterday morning. Poor Steve, he looked so sweet and peaceful in bed until the mad boyfriend shattered the calm with mutterings and hopping about in tight underwear. Not a pleasant sight! When left the house about a quarter to nine, my head just buzzing with thoughts. I've got used to this by now. Every time I go to shull a new set of worries seem to immerge, will they accept me? What will a Saturday service be like? Will I make a complete Burk of myself? But I resolved to keep optimistic. Steve got me as far as town then we parted company. Okay, it was just me, facing this whole experience on my own. I had to take this, be brave and have faith in myself to chart these oh so strange waters. I was so nervous to get their on time I over shot the bus-stop by miles. I got off the bus pissed off and down heartened. How the f*** was I going to get to shull now? Other bus stops with a number 2 seemed non-existent. This is when something of the Sabbath magic happened. Like an angel fluttering from the ether a police car drew up and then the door opened and my Modern Theologians lecture stepped out in a police uniform. I was startled for a second, until I remembered that he did community work, maybe he's a community support officer. I explained what had happened and he offered to give me a lift to shull. I gladly accepted and in a few minutes we drew up outside the shull, grinning at the thought of showing up in a police car. I thanked him and then walked in. The place was packed, children and adults in Saturday best filled the room, old ladies chatting, young girls laughing. It was the day of someone's Bat Mitzvah. I sat in the corner and watched people pour in. Although every time I see this community I feel a real sense of awe but also I feel a real sense of isolation, reminded by the fact that I'm an outsider, a newcomer and it feels painful sometimes. I walked into the main room. It was packed with people donning their prayer shawls. It was an impressive sight. The service was composed of mainly singing as well as readings from the Torah, read by a young girl, whose special day it was. She read the Hebrew so confidently, I was so envious. There was so also the procession of the Torah scrolls around the shull and then a reading from the scroll itself. The reading for troubling to the congregation, Numbers 15:32: [i] "Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation and they put him in custody, because it hadn't been declared what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, 'The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. "So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the Lord had commanded Moses."[/i] There were whispers from the old men in the back row of "how terrible", " they still do that in some countries", "thank God we live in a civilized country". Had a really come here to listening to such a dark tale I thought to myself? What kind of God would do that? That rabbi sensed the tension in the air and tried to address the theological gulf left by the passage. He talked of consequences of our actions, of the need to be reminded of our boundaries. But it didn't satisfy the congregation who wanted more of answer than that. For me, it questioned my faith in the God of Torah, it shook me up, for in the passage it was possible to see the great tension in man's interpretation of God's nature. As Jung puts it, God is both beautiful and terrible in the same breath; he is darkness, anger, force but also love and tenderness, without contradiction and schism. Of course this raises more questions. questions which often lead to silence but in the end we must try and accept the representations in scripture if only as a starting point to uncover their meaning and learn from them. At the heart of Judaism lies the ineffable encounter with a God who is beyond humanity and yet is linked in relationship to humanity. Sometimes God is supposed us shake up and make us question our attitudes and how boundaries, without such a process faith could not be possible. There are no easy answers to representations of God such as this, but then God by his nature is not simple. The service moved on to a sermon, dedicated to the girl and her Bat Mitzvah. He told her that the passage in Numbers teaches the need to have things to remember our boundaries, to remember how to live a good life. for if we stray out of forgetfulness we are in danger of dire consequences. The rabbi talked of the fringes on the prayer shawl and how they act as a reminder of the Jewish life, how kosher, as none-sensical as it seems reminds the person of her obligations to fulfill the mitzvot. He went to say that in the course of our lives we all need such reminders to ground us and shape us, to keep us on the right path. Undergoing the process of being a son or daughter of the Commandment means allowing the mitzvot to enrich your life and become grounded in them. This midrash of the Numbers passage taught me two interesting lessons this week: God's mystery and the need to be reminded not only of his mystery but also be reminded of our lived response to that mystery, the sense of being reminded, a sense of being commanded, a sense of creating a full religious life based on lived actions. I felt as if this Midrash was speaking not merely to her but also me who like her wanted to be imbued with the mitzvot and to live within the boundaries of the Jewish people. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
1:48 am	The Moral of Shavout Yesterday was an incredibly mixed kind of day. It was the Jewish Festival of Shavout, the first festival that I have ever observed. Steve was kind enough to take me to Shull, I felt strangely excited as I walked through the doors. I was greeted by a familiar face, the Shull youth leader I forget her name. She asked me how I was and how exactly I became interested in Judaism, promising me to e-mail me and said that they were a supportive community for converts. As I walked into the main hall I was greeted by friendly faces and rows of famillies. I sat by an old lady, who got me a pray book and started chatting about what all old ladies tend to do, their grand-children and what they were taking at university. The chat was so lovely that I was almost sad when the service started. There was such a buzz about it place, muffled voices, laughter, a community brought together by a common story- the Shavout event, the giving of the Torah to Moses. The story however represents something wider than the giving of the first five books of the Tanakh. For Jews the word Torah means the Jewish way of life, a whole way of living and relating to the cosmos, a system of ethics, spirituality and holiness. The giving of the story represents for Jews the great moment of God's engagement with the Jews, the moment when his loving covenant is extended to every part of life from eating, to sleeping, to washing, establishing the sacred at the very centre of life. Ultimatelt though Torah represents a plan for the whole world, a hope for the establishment of peace, fellowship and justice. Then Rabbi Morris hopped around the podium with a smile on his face. He'd cracked another joke. I've noted this has become a regular feature of his spiritual bedside manner, which seems to put everyone at ease. Then he burst into a bright rendition of the Hebrew liturgy in rememberence of the Torah. Then the Ark was opened revealing the beautiful silver caskets containing the Torah scrolls, to which the congregation bowed deeply. The service was beautiful, one liturgy seemed to meld into another, weaving with elequence and passion God's law and love in the lives of the Jewish people. I stood and watched the people around me sing and chant. When one is in place of worship I think it is vital to ask the question, is there truth and holiness here, is there love is there true worship? If yes then the worship is a true to God, if not the exercise is vain. I felt assured though as I watched chanted along with them the celebration was genuine and deeply felt. I came out feel exilerated, re-freshed even. Afterwards I went with Steve to the pub and had a nice supper. I talked excitedly about the service, I hope I didn't bore him. I got back as is tradition on these occasations I read a portion of the Torah. My meditation interupted the sound of the door. My housemate Will came walking in and said almost matter-of-factly that he had been mugged on Cardigan road and his mobile phone had been stolen as well as 51 p. I was appauled. Will phoned the police and within a few minutes they came and asked him to come down to the station, give a statement and then return to the scene of the crime. After he left, a huddled group of angry friends sat round the table and talked the whole thing over. We were asking why do people do it? Is it because people are just bad? Or is it because they have had a bad start in life? Why did the world seem so out of control sometimes? Paul and I were kindred spirits that night, asking the same questions, with all the theft and the violence in the world is there really hope for a better future? Will things ever get better than this? In the conclusion we came that the great redeeming feature of being human is that there is always hope, no matter how horrible things get, there is always a vision to excite the imagination of people to push for a better world. Whether it is the New Testament, or the Communist manifesto, men have had dreams which have spurred them on to love and fraternity, working for a better world, and therein lies our hope. Friendship and fellowship provide the answers we concluded that although sometimes you feel helpless against somekind of rising tide you don't have to let you swallow you up. I was angry about what those bastards had done to Will, but also felt pity for the people who had sunk so low as to do that to another person. I asked myself again can the world get any better and then I remembered the moral of the Shavout story. Torah is not merely a book, it's a way of relating the world, it's a force for change in the world, the hope that one day if we work for a better society no-one will get mugged on street-corners for their mobiles, no-one will have to be afraid any more. What does the prophecy say, "Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken. 5All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever".I hope that day comes soon, I really do so no-one else has to feel afraid. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 27th, 2006
8:20 pm	A Good Time to Be Alive Well I've finished my second year of university to be honest it does feel odd. Time seems to pass so quickly here, things seem so changeable and so fickle, people are moving on including Paul and Will, but I hope I will see them. Things have changed so much over the past year, but through it all I've had Steve. He's my rock, my star, my angel and any other sentimental title I can think of. We went out for dinner yesterday and then a film. The main topic of conversation was how to keep Kosher. Over the last few days Steve has made me keep to kosher rules very strictly, helping me adapt to trying to live a Jewish existence. He's been so brilliant,about the whole thing; he doesn't have to offer the support he does, but none-the-less he gives it unreservably. I'm sure that I don't deserve me at all, but I've been very lucky. I was still with Mark I would have faded away into nothing. Steve has been good for me. He's made me realize that I need to build an adult life, that I cannot do everything in reference to my family and that I need to take control of things. In short, that I should relish the process of becoming my own person. It has been a painful process I must admit, fret with a few family arguments and an anxiety that perhaps I couldn't help, but I feel now that I am gradually asserting myself. What did Mama Cass say, "it maybe rough going, do your thing is the hardest thing to do, but you've got to make your own kind of music, even if no-one else sings along". Never in my life have a felt more free and fulfilled, I've got love and I've got direction. I pray this stint of good fortune lasts. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
7:11 pm	The trouble with Queer Culture This week Imagin and Paul have really made me think about something that has been on my mind for a while now, namely where is the Queer political movement going and does it have a future? Imagin told me about a recent thing on BBC 3 called the trouble with Gay Men. On it, the writer and broardcaster Simon Fanshawe argues that "we gay men are living the lives of teenagers, still obsessed with sex, bodies, drugs, youth, and being "gay". He believes that We have demanded a place at the table, to use Bill Clinton's phrase, but now that it is laid, some of us insist on still behaving with the silly rebelliousness of extended adolescence. I agree and the fact is, an increasing number of fellow queers feel very much the same on the issue. The advent of Civil Partnerships is emblematic of the emergence of monogamy in a political space which has always been ill-at-lease with sexual exclusiveness. By campaigning for same-sex marriage the LGBT community seems to be saying that they want be able to have that “special someone” recognized. This is doubtless the product of living in a post-AIDS world, where the care-free utopianism of 1970s “screw who you wanna screw” Hippydom, idealized in our parent’s generation, has become a folk-myth we keep on retelling. We live in a world after the trip, where love and the consequences of our sexual choices have come of age. Britain had Thatcher, the US had Reagan and the Gay Left had a reality check. Old Gay activists now stand back and lament this new landscape, rigid, unforgiving and somber. Queers they argue are becoming increasingly at one with the cultural establishment and politically docile. They ask where has all the spirit of sexual joy gone? And why are Queer people fighting for a conformist equality agenda rather than breaking free of repressive heterosexual mores? Many on the radical Left of our movement see “Gay Marriage” as an affront to the sexual freedom the first Stonewall Rioters fought for. Instead of liberating themselves from the bonds of sexual repression Queers are now aping the oppressive institutions of their straight brothers rather than forging new modes of sexual existence. We live at the beginning of counter-revolution they claim, of which “the ring thing” and Civil partnerships are but the epitomes of some terrible oncoming zeitgeist of sexual Puritanism. Although I am the first to commend Radicals for their tireless efforts, I am equally skeptical of the tendency of those militant people in our movement to demonize monogamy and Gay Marriage as something resembling in the infiltration of straight values. The red-blooded blame the Homocons, Queers that have gone Tory or insipid Liberal elements who are collusion with the establishment. I guess if you believe that then I’m a defector to the enemy’s corner because I support marriage and monogamy and don’t see why I should be made to feel guilty for it. I stand whole-hearted on the progressive Left of the LGBT Movement but always feel that fellow progressives find me an uncomfortable presence because of what I support. The thing is, the Radical Queers who call me a Homocon completely misunderstand both me and what has happened with the gay movement. It was once believed that free-love was the answer to queer freedom and a source of mutual solidarity which had the power to subvert Capitalism. Today this right to sleep with who we choose has been robbed of its radicalism and become just another part of the Capitalist machine of consumption, in the form of the commercial scene designed and tailored for Queers. With the advent of the “Pink Pound” LGBT people have become less like political dissenters and more like “Pansies” with purchasing power. The Gay Community, if we can call it that, has become less of a reality and more of a handy demographic noun which refers to Queer consumers, not a community at all. On the Left, we know better than Libertarian Tories that true community is built not on a cash-nexus, not on a market-place, not on naked self-interest, not even on the state, but on love, empathy and interdependence. In and through community we become more than just an alienated pleasure-seekers, we become whole psychological beings, mature and giving. True solidarity is not just achieved by having our own clubs and bars, which can be sold off and closed, but in personal relationships. Civil Partnerships seem to me to a unique opportunity for LGBT people to redeem collective solidarity from the clutches of consumer-driven individualism which have plagued Queer consciousness since the “80s”. Queers by recognizing that “special someone” are taking the first steps in salvaging community, building loving cohorts and families. Reactionaries on the Lavender Left fear that Gay Marriage is merely an insidious attempt by cultural conservatives to make Queers as straight and “normal” as possible. In the past Queers have been forced to live in ghettos and traverse a murky sexual underworld. Their experience was that of an immigrant, despised and alienated from society and response to this oppression LGBT people formed their own cultural practices to set themselves apart from the society which mistreated them. Reflections of much value came from this dissident voice, a desire to criticize the gender roles that men and women take for granted and turn them upside down. Yet, from the same practices came fear of heterosexual society and an irrational hatred of the word “marriage”. Now Queers have protection under the law, freedom from persecution and the right to live in peace and dignity. The immigrants have in affect broken down the walls of the ghetto and come out into the light. Like the Jews of Enlightenment Europe before them, the elders of the community are frightened because they fear the loss of identity and common purpose which might result if the ghetto is left behind. The children might go off and forget the “queer traditions” which they have been taught and imitate the straight outsiders. It is this ghetto mentality that plagues the Old Queer Left and blinds them to a new kind of community that can be found in family. For those of us who are Left-wing and defend family values do so, not in defense of arbitrary institutions or traditions, as the Old Left claim, but in defense of the reciprocal kinship and care which lies at the heart of all kinds of families be they nuclear, extended or single-parent families. We defend committed relationships not to ape heterosexuals but because of the stability and benefits that such commitment can bring to individuals who choose them. Queer “family values” is not a conservative invention, on the contrary it is deeply radical. Instead of participating in pointless old-fashioned debates on the destruction of bourgeois institutions, those of us who on the New Left and Liberal wings of sexual politics, are putting radical change into motion by instituting a new Bent discourse of family. By pushing for same-sex partnerships we have set an irresistible chain of events in motion, in which the patriarchal and sexiest ideologies at the heart of marriage will be destabilized in favor of a new sexual egalitarianism. Giving same-sex partners the legal and social security of a recognized partnership offers same-sex couples the tools to forge a family of their own and the building blocks to challenge and reconstruct the heterosexist and gendered institution of marriage in their own image. In an increasing complex world the old debate about assimilation or separation with well past its sell-by date Sexual and political identity has become fractured as the nature what it means to be a Queer individual has changed. The fact is Queers have become assimilated and moved beyond seeing themselves as creatures of the margins. That doesn’t mean that they have become the same as some pre-defined norm, they are still a pluralist group of individuals in an increasingly pluralist society. We are now as it were “post-gay”. This does not mean that we have given up fighting or that we have ceased to care, it means that Queer politics has shifted to a new and exciting position. We are no-longer defined by sexuality alone, we are no-longer fumbling around the closet in search of Judy Garland L.Ps. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
2:13 pm	Messianic Congregation and Joe Cracking on with essays or at least trying! Someone Jewish guy I know, Joe from the C.U Forum has invited me to his congregation for a friday night service. All good accept he is a Messianic Jew, (a Jew that believes in Jesus). He's a very nice guy and really interesting to talking to so when he invited me to his congregation I was glad to accept. Thing is I'm uneasy because I don't want them to push a conversion agenda down my throat and ask me why I don't accept Yesu as my Lord and saviour. I know what my reasons are, but I hate hving to explain them. At least it will be an experience, I'll see another element of Judaic practice which can only be a good thing. I just know they'll be really Evangelical but Joe assures me that they are friendly, urrgh, i'm just not sure. Well I'll see how I feel. The thing, I feel guilty going to a Messianic congregation when I should be going to the Reform Shull service in Roundhay. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
5:06 pm	Back in Leeds again and more calm than I was last week. It was brilliant to come home-(Leeds Home) and step into the student pit full of mess! It feels more like home when it's a dive! Steve and I had great "I've missed you" sex and then got a takeway. I've got tones of work to do and just can't find the motivation to get it all done. Hopefully inspiration will arrive soon. Yesterday I trecked with Steve over to Roman avenue to attend the Shull Passover Service. Unfortunately we were half an hour late and missed it but I managed to catch the Rabbi briefly and asked to make an appointment with him to discuss conversion. He asked me to ring him to work out a date. I've rung him and e-mailed him and he hasn't replied. Is he trying to put me off in a traditional Rabbinic stylie? Well if so I just have to keep on being patient. I know that Judaism doesn't encourage conversion and all this putting you off, is part of process. The thing is unless I speak to him soon this waiting game is going to send me mad. At the moment I feel like a Jew among Gentiles and a Gentile among Jews- I just don't feel I belong. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006
10:44 pm	Home (or why Tories, Racists and Control Freaks make me want to Flip) I'm home, back since Thurday and already I feel bored and warn down. This house is filled with happy memories but memories alone seem to me to be so drap. I feel guilty saying it but I feel alienated here, not my true self. I keep my opinions closeted because most of the time they are too left-wing or liberal do-gooder for consumption. Unless the conversation is focused on tax and why we, "Middle England" as my Granny calls it should pay less or stereotyping ethnic minorities it's not worth talking about. Well I don't see us struggling in a council flat and for somebody who apparently pays "soo much tax", my uncle Stewart has done alright for himself. Also, I don't see this village overrun by Albanian looters, at least not yet. The Right always seem to be obsessed by folk-demons. "single-mothers", "asylum seekers", "peadophiles", each a symptom of why Britain needs to go back to traditional values. What they mean by this is anyone's guess but it probably has something to do with less of those packies and blackies and involves rounding up teenagers and putting them in army barracks. The Daily Mail, that revolting paper sits like an impending shadow over otherwise modest and i am sure liberal kitchen table. I can't stamd to be around around my family when they become all money grapping and hot with racist slurs, it makes me feel uncomfortable. My uncle blames next to everything on ethnic minorities. He can never see the good in anyone, his mind is too narrow for that, his perceptions tinted by prejudice and bad experience. When my uncle goes on about the 80S and how "Thatcher's children" are doing so well, I think, yeah because she taught people that greed was good and you don't need to feel guilty about shitting on people. As my uncle has said; in this life you can't trust anyone and the only thing that matters is the little brown envelope. How said they have no idealism, no desire to make things better, to hope, but no what my family do is moan and if you show a shred of idealism you get shot down in flames. This cynicism drives me mad, this thirst for doom and gloom really sends me packing. God it's Enoch Powell mark-two whenever he stops by. I hate the racism, i hate the cyncism, I hate the assumption that my opinions have no relevence. He is a classic Thatcherite reactionary who's always plotting to make more money on the back of some bastard. He doesn't know how lucky he is to be so previledged and well off while other people are living in dives. As long as he pays next to zero tax other people can go to hell. Home is alienating perhaps not only because the Daily Mail tripe but because I can't be me. I can'y talk about my boyfriend and whenever my sexuality is mentioned it's the subject of ridicule. My granny avoids the subject making me feel like i'm always putting on a performance every time I come home. At home I don't have a cock I have a malady that can be taken the micky out of. Fuck Character building, that is the the Public school way of saying what we politely call bullying and harrassment in state schools. I don't aprove of it and whenever Callum or Stewart does it I loose respect for them and love my home less and less. Homophobic twats! My grandfather, well sometimes he's okay, most the time however he's quite objectionable. Oh yeah, did I mention, at home I feel invaded. I come home to be told what to do and complained at for not accepting advice, which in plain language means not accepting their lead. Unfortunately it has the rather unfortunately affect of transforming me into a moody teenager wanking to Punk and Che Gavara. When I'm at home I cry out for my family to respect me, but all I get is patronising bollocks-because of course I can't cope with anything and they are always right. I despise the way they treat me sometimes, I'm 20 for God's sake. I can't wait to finish the degree and then move in a Leeds flat with Steve. I just need to get away. I feel annoyed and sufficated by all this authority, all this "advice"- I can't wait to be back in Leeds. I stay because of my Granny mostly and friends, but not many of them are home which has made me feel quite low- to make it worse I have a mound of work I should have finished weeks ago. Sigh. I miss Steve so much, the thought of parting from him and stuck here makes me very sad indeed. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
12:37 am	Some More Reflections on Hell A Christian said to me today that I should accept hell because God died at such cost, Christ died for our salvation which we do not deserve. My response was to ask him what had Christ done if people are condmned to hell. A God who on one hand gives up his son for the world and still let billions of people suffer forever shows the utter inaffectiveness of God's son in bringing about a supposed solution of dying once for all. If God wishes all men to be saved and he is the only one that can acomplish why does he condemn some to bliss and others to torture? If Hell is real and billions will remain in an eternal deathlike state of torment with no chance to repent or escape, how exactly are we to understand and rejoice in the fact that Jesus destroyed death and him that had the power of death (Satan)? (Hebrews 2:14-15, 1 John 3:8, Hosea 13:14, 1 Corinthians 15:55, 1 Corinthians 1). What has Jesus death actually achieved if hell endures and billions of people remain unsaved? If Hell is real, can you honestly rejoice in the victory, love, and wisdom of God, knowing that somewhere in His beautiful creation there will always be a black and stinking hell-hole crammed full of tortured souls who have no chance for relief or forgiveness--or even death? Even if there was only one person left in such a state, how could all of Heaven—or you—rejoice for all eternity knowing that there was still one soul who had not been touched by the victory of Christ and was suffering alone. The last century has seen enough hells without creating more. The hells of mass murder and mass death, the horrors of the Holocaust, two world wars, the Armenian genocide, the Stalinist gulag, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Maoist purges, killing fields in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rawanda, the hell of global environmental, disaster and the hell of AIDS. I believe there is enough hell to deal with in this the world without needing a hell in here-after. I believe God comes to the pain of the world and he heals it, not perpetuate pain in the world to come. Hell is an insult to a human race that suffers enough. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 25th, 2006
7:17 pm	Sin and Suffering This week I've been reading the book of Ezekiel and Jerimiah and trying to interpret it in relation to the Holocaust. The logic of Ezekiel and Jerimiah is that sin leads to disorder and destruction and rightousness leads to peace and justice. Jeremiah 7:5-7, "If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever." Ezekiel 5:8-9- "I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again". Yet, can we apply this logic to the Holocaust, surely the death of millions of people can't be justified in the context of sin. As Rebbe said: "The destruction of six million Jews in such a horrific manner that surpassed the cruelty of all previous generations, could not possibly be because of a punishment for sins. Even the Satan himself could not possibly find a sufficient number of sins that would warrant such genocide! There is absolutely no rationalistic explanation for the Holocaust except for the fact that it was a Divine decree … why it happened is above human comprehension – but it is definitely not because of punishment for sin". I have come to a difficult point- Why would a just God allow the Holocaust to happen? What sin could the Jews have committed to warrant six million deaths? Can we still really maintain a relationship between misfortne and sin in the light of the Holocaust? The thing I fail to understand is this. Why by saying that Satan causes suffering instead God makes human suffering any more justifiable or any less in the remit of God? In a court of law if permitted somone to murder another human being with full knowledge I would be held accountable for the crime of inaction to prevent this terrible action. I guess what I'm saying is surely suffering and darkness are part of the Godhead by the very fact that God allows terrible things to happen to Job. It is all very easy to dismiss the question of suffering by appealing to a kind of legalistic theology, whereby we all deserve to die and thus suffering is part of God's punishment on his rebelious creatures, but it actually avoids the question by placing the blame entirely on human beings. The fact remians that God placed the tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, opening up the possibility of sin entering into the world, he allowed his creatures to decieved by the serpent. In short God allowed man to fall. His inaction is what makes God seem accountable. Christians believe that we all deserve to die because of our sin and that the suffering we endure is the fault of Adam. This does not explain suffering however, merely avoids answering the question. This childish fettish of "we all deserve to die" because of our sin is often said by Christian who have never really experienced terrible suffering. It is easy to say these things when we live in a peaceful, first world nation without the immediate threat of torture or death. If we deserve to die it is God who has made the rules of the game. God is responsible. I defy these Evangelical twats to go to a relative of the people killed in Hillsborough and tell them that the victims deserved to die, or indeed to tell the survivors of the Nazi death-camps shouldn't have survived. A Christian said to me this week, "Sin deserves hell, and though people might consider Nazi germany to be hell, it is nothing in comparison to the eternal "weeping and gnashing of teeth" that sin requires". In the faces of people's who's lives have been shattered this is no answer, it is a cruel and insidious insult and to even believe it is an afront to those who suffer! It's all very easy to say these things in an abstract way- but it provides no answer to suffering! Why does sin deserve death? Why did God allow sin into the world? Why did he allow Adam and Eve to fall? Why? I think the best way to view suffering as a mystery of our existence, not to pretend that tidy theologies of sin and retribution can somehow provide the answer to the human condition. If God allows man to fall and then condemns man for his own inaction that is unjust. The best way to deal with the question is answer not with theology but with silence, in which we can reflect and share people's pain. Suffering affords no answer, in the end silence is all we can offer. _________________ (Comment on this)
7:02 pm	Yesterday I went to the Friday Night Sabbath service at Sinai Reform Synagogue and I just wanted to tell people on here about because I was so moved by experience. When I first went in some Psalms were being sung in Hebrew, (as was common in Synagogues at the time of Jesus). The Liturgy was so beautiful. After the Psalms a number of Sabbath songs were recited including the Shema- "Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad"- "Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One", Deuteronomy 6:4-9.The liturgy then turned to the meaning of the Sabbath and God's love for Isreal- "You have loved the House of Israel with an eternal love! Torah and commandments, decrees and rulings You have given us". After this there was then a reading from the Torah narrating the story of God's commands to the Jews concerning Passover: " Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls;And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.... And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it". What with all the songs and the reading I felt I was touching the past and reliving the events of the Exodus. I was deeply moved. Then the congregation turned to the door to welcome what is called the Bride of the Sabbath, a symbol of the beauty of God's command to rest: Lecha Dodi Likrat Kallah (come, my beloved, to meet the [Sabbath] bride). It is said "more than Israel has kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept Israel." My Hebrew was very bad and didn't understand all the liturgy but just standing there and listening was an inspiring experience. After the welcoming of the Bride Kaddish, (The Jewish prayer for the dead), was recited. The thing I found amazing about the Kaddish was that it was a prayer of sadness or mourning but a prayer of praise, "In the world that He created as He willed, May He give reign to His Kingdom In your lifetimes and in your days, and In the lifetimes of the entire family of Israel, swiftly and soon!" So even in times of distress the Jewish people still praise God. The service finished with the pouring of wine and the shaking of hands. I left the Synagogue feeling strangely uplifted and I must say enriched by it all and glad that through all the years of persecution the Jews still keep hold of these beautiful traditions. (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 18th, 2006
6:01 pm	Dear Journal, Things seem well fcked up at the moment. I'm stressed and I've got myself worked up over all the work I have to do and the prospect of doing it all is actually driving me mad! To make things worse I feel utterly confused as I feel flung into one of those "spiritual crisis" momenrs again. I think I've never really fitted into Christianity as much as I have tried to. I've always been totally assured of God's existence but Christian theology hasn't rung completely and the theology which I have developed to understand Christianity from my point of view have always turned out to be heretical and outside the grain of the church. I turned to the Quakers, who in there openess and tolerance allowed me to understand the need to find God's truth within onself and treat religion as a journey, not a package of doctrines. Religion is about the growth of the spirit and the need to allow God to speak to you at all times no matter what others think of you. I don't really know what the next step will be. I feel drawn again to questing for a religion, a spirituality that will have me and allow me to become closer to God. I'm drawn towards Judaism, but who knows. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
8:26 pm	A Very Strange Visit I visited Mark today, haven't seen him in months. He came to the door, glared at me as he usually does and relucantly let me in. His whole face seemed to be etched with deep sadness. When I walked to his room I noted the new stack of DVDs, he obviously been out much over the past few months. He started going into a long draw-out monolougue on what had transpired since by departure. The family has completely disowned apparently and his mother was calling him "slut of the family", throwing out books she felt immoral and has called his homosexuality evil. Then I braced myself. He began to rant, saying how I had just run away and left him to his fate. I felt bad because yes I had left him, but I said that I couldn't be his defender against his family. I'd done everything I could to help him, I cried with him, I supported him, take with him and tutor, but there were limits to what I could do. I reminded him that it wasn't my job to get involved in family politics, he just looked at me like a puppy betrayed, anxsty face and downcast eyes. Then he suddenly relented, no he said, I know it wasn't you, but resentment still hovered behind those eyes. He went on, the PHD had fallen though, his accademic future was in doubt and his family hated him. I suggested he re-think things, attempt to get some of his disability money away from his brutish father, get a job teaching at a 6th form college and get a house of his own. He seemed to find holes with each of these suggestions, he seemed so down, like all the hope had been sapped from him. I felt so sorry for him and everuthing he's beeb through. In the end he just held me tight and sobbed and asked me never to leave him, just like he used to say when we were boyfriends. I just held him, tried to calm him down, but all I could do was think about the emotional wreck in my arms. His family had warped him and drived him mad and I unwittingly fell into the middle of it all. We said goodbye in good terms and he begged me not to go but I started feeling uncomfortable, he awas beginning to trap me again. He begged me to come back tomorrow, I said I might. He's so needy but I have the feeling that's he lost all the drive to help himself and resist his parents. University as he pointed was an escape, if his parents get him back home it would be like prison to him. I loved him and he says he loved me deeply, but I wonder if, in the end whether love can conquer all or is it just a fairytale mothers tell there daughters. Mark believes im the power of Love, yet love has been thrown back in his face, cut up, eaten and spat out. In his case, it is the quest for love that has driven him insane, it is the lack of love which tears him apart daily and seems to make him a little less alive. God bless the guy's soul. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
11:31 am	Catching Up Dear Journal It’s been along time since my last entry (BUT THAT’S NOT FOR HERE!). At last I’ve got what I wanted, university and a steady boyfriend with immense effort. My mental state is much better, I feel confident and my panic attacks are fading. I’ve got to say that this last year and bit has been a weird mix of good points and bad, all mixed in. In September 2004 all the old gang went to Ireland I can only say it was one of the best holidays of my life, even though at the time I still was in love with Chris. I felt a real sense of belonging and solidarity with them, my friends together, maybe not forever, but at least for the now. When I first went to university I feared that I would leave all the old gang behind, Carole, Edd, Harry, Joy, Simon, Biscuit, Toby and the rest, but it didn’t happen like that, we all stayed in touch, we see each other all the time, things are good. In the first term I was pained by a deep sense of melancholy. I was alone in a strange place, I felt like a nomad. I just needed to come home all the time. It’s just that people on my floor were really quiet and I just didn’t feel part of the whole University experience. I know the gang felt the same as I did, I rang Harry a few times and he said he wished he was back at school and things were easy. I remember sighing in agreement, saying “yeh, I know what you mean”. I thought that love, just a relationship would save me, after all, deep down I still loved Chris. On the second or was the third night at university I ended up at a guys house, not that attractive, with a bad limp, glasses, the lot, but we had a good conversation and ended up sharing the same bed. Like me he loved the Classics, Plato in particular but so puritanical, (Catholic Family), he wouldn’t let me touch him or anything. He was a Platonist so he said and was utterly embarrassed by anything approaching the physical. Looking back now as a person he is remarkably similar in Neurotic temperament to Clive in the novel Maurice for E.M Forster, which he bought me ironically for a birthday present. He knew nothing about sex, his family he said had kept him sheltered from all that. It was his intellect that I believe made me fall in love with him. His name was Mark Gibbs and up until Christmas I practically lived in his flat. The thing about Mark was not that he was not a good person that I am assured of, the thing was, his family ruled his life so much, made worse by the lack of confidence which his physical disability generated, that his only escape was his intellect. He conceptualised everything in ancient Greek terms and if it wasn’t prescribed by some ancient Greek moralist, then it was low and would he told me lower his soul or some such thing. He was particularly fond of Plato’s Pheadrus, the part about the wings of the soul being clipped due to carnal desires. He was convinced that I had fucked up his chances of Union with the Good. He was such a Hellene that I had to trick him into having sex for the first time, after which he enjoyed it, but deep down I don’t think he ever felt comfortable with the idea. We had four or five blissful weeks, then I finally discovered all the holes in our relationship. He was far too irrational, tears and tantrums all the time, doubtless a result of his over-protective mother. He didn’t make me feel secure; he always needed constant reassurance that I loved him and wasn’t going to leave him. Caught up in “the madness of kisses” to lift a phrase I obliged partly because I loved him and also this was my first proper relationship and I fatefully imagined that lovers did this continual round of reassurance but eventually even I understood that it was a little un-natural. His family dominated his life, he was rapped in cotton wool that he didn’t seem to have a mind of his own. His mother was his idol and not I, God, or common sense was going get in the way. Although a lovely lady she was so obsessed with the well-being of her son to such an extent that he was not allowed privacy at home and his parents were always visiting him at university. I had the sense that they had sapped his self-will. It was parents more than me he worried about. He was my complete opposite. I wanted independence, rebellion, radical politics, night-life, getting pissed and I suspect in an alley at two in the morning fucking a complete stranger, (with a condom of course). He was by contrast almost entirely tea-total, scared of going outside, conservative, apolitical, as radical as a dead duck and hating socialising. He had no communications skills, he couldn’t be brave or firm, his parents had made him spineless. He was predominantly a very friendless and anti-social sort of guy, who buried his head in the past to obviously escape the present. He loved Jane Bronte, Kings and Queens, Opera and knew nothing about the world of here and now. As I got to know him more and more I realised that this as well as his overt effeminacy really frustrated me. As it got colder and darker from a seasonal point of view, our love went the same way. It came to ahead in November when he finally told his parents he was gay. It didn’t go down too well, well that is actually the biggest understatement I’ve ever made. They stopped talking to him for days, his mum headed for nervous break-down and his brutish Yorkshire father (who took lessons from the Marquis of Queensbury), wanted to kill me. Nothing could more terrible to them. I had corrupted their son, taught him the hideous vices of Sodom and set him on the path of sin. He was finally the Pink sheep of the family, but he and his family couldn’t handle it. Oh God, what had I done? As time went on tempers got more and more strained. I was tired being this guy’s emotional rock against the power of his parents. I was tired of his timidity, his anti-social habits, and his sexual and emotional immaturity. I asked myself, what had this relationship given me? I had been absorbed in this boy’s psychological world, his intellectual obsessions, his fears and insecurities. It had left me with no friends because he never went out, so naturally I never made any. He was a ball and chain, always weighing me down. He was fearful of clubs, crowded rooms, loud noises, no rock gigs for us then. I took him to Queen’s Court a few times, but he was always looking and snarling at the men who were undressing me with their eyes, like that cute Leeds Met student, I wander what happened to him? When we went to a gay club, Fibre for the first time Mark’s response was “It’s like the last days of the Roman Empire!” He was always so puritanical. Now I just couldn’t cope with the isolation any more. During the Christmas break I thought of the mess that was left behind in Leeds, an emotional wrecked boyfriend with angry parents. It’s when I got back in January that I decided that this boy, for all his intellect, culture and refinement was not for me. I broke up with him three days after we got back and I know it bad, but I couldn’t go on. Broken heart or no broken heart I’d got to be free. I spent the next few weeks drinking to try and cope with it. I started getting to know my floor-mates, had vodka and takeaways. I was single again and for once I was so glad. So my first brief relationship had been an absolute disaster. After a day in Uni I liked just laying on my bed just listening to radio 4. and getting drunk with the people next door. It was a boring life and at least I was free to do what I wanted. I eventually decided to find some Queer company and sent an E-mail to the LGBT Society in the hope that I could join. I got a polite E-mail back and decided to go upstairs into the Union to find the meeting room. I found it and greeted by a load of smiley faces. The first person I was introduced was Sasha. He was a really nice lad, really friendly and funny. It was really good to talk him, which I did for eight hours or more with a bit of snogging and nakedness in between. Nice. It was Wednesday. The following day I joined the society proper and then was asked out to the gay club (Mission). I knew it would be full of mincing queers but I didn’t really care. All this stuff was exciting and new. There was good talk, good kissing and good cock and I wasn’t one to complain. So, I went, standing outside in the cold I met this tall lad, longish hair, sweet eyes, called Steve, a pharmacology student no-less. I just remember talking about my course and how much I loved Hinduism. We chatted for a bit as we got into the same taxi and the first inkling of desire was when his leg brushed mine. If only I’d known! We ended up dancing, kissing, then he spent the night at mine, just cuddling in each other’s arms. The night in question 20th of January. For the next three or four weeks he was round mine constantly, it was beautiful. We spent whole days kissing and cuddling, cementing our relationship, everything was so blissful. Then after a few weeks I went to his halls one night and met his housemates, among them Ste and Tactia who I just loved to bits. We got on so well, that night I got everyone rolling around with laughter, good first impressions. After that I hardly went back to my halls and was always round Steve’s. I loved living with him. Everyday we’d go from uni to Headingly after lectures and had a meal or a snack at night then I had a shower and snuggled up to bed with him, that was our usual routine or sometimes at weekends we’d go to the Cockpitt, an indie club for a night. Its a year on now and my life seems infinately more settled. My friend Julia told me before we left school that whatever shit life would through at me everything would work out in the end. It seems that she was right. I've gone through gayness, Christianity, guilt, sexual frustration and loneliness and come out the other side. I have a life of my own now and all I want to do is live it. I have people I care about and trust here, I have a house, a loving boyfriend and maybe if I play my cards right, the prospect of a political vocation in the Union. I comcannot plain because actually the gods have given me everything I could have asked for. Of corse in this life one can never tell and should be greatful for what one has. (2 Comments |Comment on this)