With study of the first unit complete the time has come to tackle an assignment. Weaving the threads together to produce a 1500 word essay is challenging. The course material and suggested additional reading has been fascinating. Many thoughts and ideas have arisen form the work. The task of bringing all this together will not be easy. It never was.
Submission of the assignment is another concern. This is now is done electronically - no more trips to the local Post Office as everything is done at the touch of a few buttons. I recall the last piece of work I posted to an Open University tutor. I had recently moved to a village to take up my first pastorate. On 11 September 2001 I went to the local Post Office to despatch my dissertation. For me, the day was both a beginning and an ending as one course was completed and a new career was begun. A significant personal moment overshadowed by the dramatic events of a day that has gone down in history.
Picking up the threads of study for this new course has so far been a pleasure. I will miss the ritual of posting the completed assignment but will no doubt experience the same huge sense of relief once the thing is done. I can delay no longer. Time to get weaving.
Sunday, 29 October 2017
Tuesday, 10 October 2017
What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?
Mahatma Gandhi arrived in England in the autumn of 1931 wearing loin cloth, sandals and a blanket. Recently released from prison, to the British press Gandhi seemed a frail and rather strange figure. In India at that time he was a national hero capable both of challenging British Rule and uniting the various factions in the campaign for Home Rule.
In 2013, a statue of Gandhi was placed in Parliament Square. The strange little man, looking on his plinth much as he did when he arrived in 1931, is now officially an honoured part of Britain's history. Not everyone was pleased. Almost seventy years after his death Gandhi continues to challenge and divide opinion.
On the face of it, the extreme reactions of some to the man and his ideas are hard to understand. What's not to like about nonviolence? In our time as much as in Gandhi's the attempt to bring change and peacefully resolve conflict has to be a better option than fighting in the streets. But of course, there is more to Gandhi than meets the eye. Academic work over the past ten years highlights some of the areas where the 'Great Soul' was not as radical as we might wish.
Gandhi's assassination in 1948 shocked the world. His killer, Nathuram Godse, was part of a Hindu Nationalist faction that held the Mahatma responsible for the partition of India. He wasn't - Gandhi himself was deeply distressed by the Two Nation solution - but as Godse said during his trial, for some the Father of the Nation had proved to be the Father of Pakistan.
In 2013, a statue of Gandhi was placed in Parliament Square. The strange little man, looking on his plinth much as he did when he arrived in 1931, is now officially an honoured part of Britain's history. Not everyone was pleased. Almost seventy years after his death Gandhi continues to challenge and divide opinion.
On the face of it, the extreme reactions of some to the man and his ideas are hard to understand. What's not to like about nonviolence? In our time as much as in Gandhi's the attempt to bring change and peacefully resolve conflict has to be a better option than fighting in the streets. But of course, there is more to Gandhi than meets the eye. Academic work over the past ten years highlights some of the areas where the 'Great Soul' was not as radical as we might wish.
Gandhi's assassination in 1948 shocked the world. His killer, Nathuram Godse, was part of a Hindu Nationalist faction that held the Mahatma responsible for the partition of India. He wasn't - Gandhi himself was deeply distressed by the Two Nation solution - but as Godse said during his trial, for some the Father of the Nation had proved to be the Father of Pakistan.
Tuesday, 3 October 2017
Celebrating a woman of faith
Controversial Figure number two is Regina Jonas, a German rabbi who died in Auschwitz. The first woman rabbi, Regina Jonas is surprisingly little known, in part because her documents were left in Berlin for safekeeping and remained hidden in a vault in East Germany until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Regina Jonas died because of racism and her story remained untold because of the political situation in her native land. As a woman she suffered discrimination within her religious tradition yet she served her community faithfully in Berlin and in the Ghetto-camp at Theresienstadt.
The discrimination against this remarkable woman continues. Orthodox Judiasm still does not accept her as a rabbi while feminist reformers are uncomfortable with her acceptance of traditions they seek to reform.
Although Regina Jonas' story is in many ways tragic it is one of a woman of faith successfully fulfilling what she believed to be a calling from God. Despite resistance and discrimination on every level this woman found a way to serve her community at a time of desperate need.
For this, rather than for the distinction of being the first ever woman rabbi, she should be remembered and honoured.
Regina Jonas died because of racism and her story remained untold because of the political situation in her native land. As a woman she suffered discrimination within her religious tradition yet she served her community faithfully in Berlin and in the Ghetto-camp at Theresienstadt.
The discrimination against this remarkable woman continues. Orthodox Judiasm still does not accept her as a rabbi while feminist reformers are uncomfortable with her acceptance of traditions they seek to reform.
Although Regina Jonas' story is in many ways tragic it is one of a woman of faith successfully fulfilling what she believed to be a calling from God. Despite resistance and discrimination on every level this woman found a way to serve her community at a time of desperate need.
For this, rather than for the distinction of being the first ever woman rabbi, she should be remembered and honoured.
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