Weaving the Rainbow in Wycombe

Rainbow Worship is a regular outfit based at St Birinus and St John High Wycombe, which started four years ago and increasingly draws in several dozen people with learning difficulties from all around, to network, celebrate, and worship. It’s a congregation that’s started from the other end, not so much trying to jam people into conventional observance as to allow simple and engaging expressions of love and prayer to emerge from a very diverse crowd.

RW is rumbustous and celebratory some of the time, but hushed and awed at others. Comments are chipped in from all around as things happen, like an ol’ time revival meeting. Craft actvities are built in, and the management has radically tried to break down the distinction between client and helper. On one occasion, as Noah’s Ark was revealed in all its glory, a loud voice cried from the back, “This is one I made earlier.”

Last night I confirmed six members of this community. It’s extraordinary how live it feels praying with people who have no “side” or pretensions, but simply respond instintively in the moment. Highlights included a Creed delivered to thunderous band in clubbing style, melding into a sea of friendly, open faces, dancing and banners, and losing myself in the joys of dance with a marimba. One of the first things I believe we will lose in heaven is self consciousness, which will be subsumed in self-awareness, and the tingling joy of being alive, as death is swallowed up in victory. That’s what we did last night anyway. A lot of us came away feeling we had had a trip to the cleaners — and that doesn’t always happen when we worship, does it?

I found it the experience of a lifetime to bless, anoint and confirm in such a place. There had been modest anxiety in the setting up about how some would cope with the touching and liturgics.
Actually, it was a liturgical stroll along a moving walkway, to call people by name into the kingdom, to anoint them as a sign that they are royalty with the King of Kings, to bless on the basis that “God has called you by name and made you his own...”

Although the language of inclusiveness is politically usable, I don’t actually think it quite covers such experiences. “Inclusiveness” assumes there is a some thing that really belongs to “us” (whoever we are) into which “they” (whoever they are) need to be “included” preferably by the things “we” do for “them.” This did not feel like that at all.

The truth is that we are all exceptional people, all fearfully and wonderfully made, with varying awareness and ownership of what makes us exceptional. Some people with learning difficulties have far more of this than the well-heeled. The real emergence of something heavenly occurs naturally when we all embrace our exceptionalities — why should we wish to be deceived? — and lose ourselves in the emergent transcendence.

One interesting little piece of inclusiveness though, was the inclusion of Morag who founded and leads the group. She was stuck in Switzerland waiting for a plane, so was skyped into the event on one of the worship leaders’ laptops.

It was the first tme I had seen that done in a confirmation, and it somehow affirmed the irrelvance of geography, as well as “disability” to the proceedings.

Many thanks to Steve the Vicar, Morag, Roger who led the talk, craft leaders, and Jay who led much of what geeks would call the Synaxis, and friends, including Scratch the Preacherman Dog.

When you get to heaven it will seem a more natural carry-on to you than it wll people who have been further up themselves on earth, because you will have been practising first.

Punky Business with Ian Dury

Musical biopics are a funny old genre. Song of Norway is a nice film. People who hate that one, however, may enjoy Mat Whitecross’ Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. This chaotic picaresque romp contains lashings of all three — exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a 1980’s Hogarth — like Gin Lane 250 years ago, a riot of grotesque caricatures, much exaggerated swearing and snarling rending the air, sordid and messed up relationships.
Very Punk.

If you hate Punk music (and be honest, that’s what you’re meant to do) you will probably think this film is no more than a filthy old mess. The script is a coarse riot. Crude rumbustuous jumble is relieved by curiously clinical flashbacks to a nasty 1950’s Spastics School. This stands for a succession of Establishments against which Dury rebelled in his youth, including Wycombe Royal Grammar School, briefly attended in the fifties. Various iconic moments, such as Dury’s punchup with Omar Sharif, are alluded to but not portrayed.

So what of Ian Dury? He caught polio at age seven, he believed from a swimming pool. His schooldays were nasty, brutish and degrading, kindling lifelong rage and a rejection of all adult authority. His grown days were one perpetual run-in with the bottle. Especially after he’d had a few, he saw himself as a kind of Spartacus figure for disabled people. He pioneered wearing of razor blades as ear rings. While his band was based in Aylesbury he drove a maroon van bearing the words “Danger — Inflammable.” Bus full of nutters.

Dury was capable of moments of great affection, but fundamentally incapable of sustaining a grown-up relationship. He was an atrocious husband and father, but one who raised atrociousness to an art form. One sub-theme of this film parallells his parenting performance with that of his own old dad. Dury was very clever with words, and his furiously alienated stance made him a kind of mirror for the rest of us from somewhere way beyond decent society.

The film’s highlights are its occasional set piece numbers, includng such unexpected surrealistic pleasures as Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick performed underwater in a swimming pool, delivered with blazing energy and freewheeling anarchy. The film’s climax, though, is a riproaring Cover of Ian Dury’s contribution to the International Year of Disabled people (1981, you remember) — tastefully entitled Spasticus Autisticus:

I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I wibble when I piddle
Cos my middle is a riddle...
Hello to you out there in Normal Land
You may not comprehend my tale or understand
As I crawl past your window give me lucky looks
You can be my body but you'll never read my books...
I'm knobbled on the cobbles
Cos I hobble when I wobble
Swim!
So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin
And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in
So long have I been languished on the shelf
I must give all proceedings to myself...
54 appliances in leather and elastic
100 000 thank yous from 27 spastics...

Ian Dury himself would have loved the look and feel of this film, probably as much as, if not more than, Grieg would have enjoyed Song of Norway. Andy Serkis does an energetic, more than capable job of impersonating the Diamond Geezer, assisted by authentic Blockheads. This is quality casting and acting, ladies and gentlemen. If you’ve given up reading this in disgust, Mr Dury would be tickled pink. If you haven’t, you probably should try and catch this film while it’s going by. I suspect, however, that its blend of blazing anger, pungent irony, verbal tiddlywinks, and angry toilet humour will not easily travel far beyond these shores.

Dury’s basic questions about how exceptional people are seen in society, their room for freedom not to be helped by well-meaning people, a notional right for anyone to define themselves however they damn well want, disability and autonomy, could still do with answering, thirty years on. And punk? Like most fashions it probably wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It seems little more than a rabid “Mr Angry” protest against the stifling conventionality of Britain in the fifties and sixties. Its incoherence makes it more like a burp in the face of the Establishment than an alternative way of life. Take away the object of its loathing, and all that is left is sound and fury, signifying, er, not a lot. But Dury’s fury was profoundly authentic, and this film is worth a look, especially if you are intrigued by the raw energy of Punk. I wouldn’t, however, take my mother in law. Seven out of Ten stars.

Kicking ’em when they’re down

Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury back in the glory days of 1937, is reported to have had strange views on bullying. His chaplain told him that Lang’s response to the Abdication made many people feel he had kicked a man when he was down. “But what’s the point of kicking a man,” mused his Grace, “if they’re not down?”

Apparently such attitudes are still alive and kicking in the UK workplace. The Equality and Human Rights Commission reports research that indicates some frankly disgusting home truths. Here is a list of workplace behaviours, reported by people with disabilities/ long term illness, and people without. See if you can make it through, without feeling sick. Proportions with a disability/ long-term illness are given in bold, set against a control group without, in italics. The asterisk indicates statistical significance:

1 - Someone withholding information which affects your performance: 18.9% (15.6%)
2 - Pressure from someone else to do work below your level of competence 19.3%* (13.5%)
3 - Having your opinions and views ignored 36.6%* (29.8%)
4 - Someone continually checking up on you or your work when it is not necessary 25.0%* (19.4%)
5 - Pressure from someone else not to claim something which by right you are entitled to 15.8%* (9.8%)
6 - Being given an unmanageable workload or impossible deadlines 41.1%* (31.1%)
7 - Your employer not following proper procedures 35.2%* (22.4%)
8 - Being treated unfairly compared to others in your workplace 21.5%* (16.7%)
9 - Being humiliated or ridiculed in connection with your work 13.4%* (8.7%)
10 - Gossip and rumours being spread about you or having allegations made against you 21.8%* (12.1%)
11 - Being insulted or having offensive remarks made about you 27.4%* (16.2%)
12 - Being treated in a disrespectful or rude way 34.7%* (24.8%)
13 - People excluding you from their group 14.1%* (8.7%)
14 - Hints or signals from others that you should quit your job 14.4%* (8.1%)
15 - Persistent criticism of your work or performance which is unfair 22.5%* (13.4%)
16 - Teasing, mocking, sarcasm or jokes which go too far 18.7%* (13.2%)
17 - Being shouted at or someone losing their temper with you 37.3%* (25.9%)
18 - Intimidating behaviour from people at work 25.4%* (15.2%)
19 - Feeling threatened in any way while at work 19.4%* (12.3%)
20 - Actual physical violence at work 11.6%* (5.5%)
21 - Injury in some way as a result of violence or aggression at work 8.8%* (4.7%)

So your chances of being beaten up are actually 3% higher if you are in a wheelchair. What??! And if you aren’t in a chair, but suffer from a learning difficulty, psychological or emotional condition, the likelihood of these negative experiences at work increases by a sickening 167 %. What, indeed??!

Additional factors that raise the chances of experiencing such behaviour include:

• Sexual orientation - being gay increased negative behaviour by 55 per cent
• Public sector - working in the public sector increased negative behaviour by 57 per cent

I cannot begin to account for these shameful figures, which strike me as way out of kilter with the kind of people we would all, surely, want to believe ourselves to be. One thing is obvious, however. This is a problem for all of us, even though the objects of bullying are picked off one by one on any given occasion. Formal workplace procedures need to be backed by positive understanding and partnership. The Churches should be in the lead, but, sadly, whatever we profess, third sector workers raise their chances of being bullied by 118%.

When and how do we think things are going to change, and how proactive are we willing to be to change them?

h/t Ann Memmott — thanks for drawing this report to my attention

Not Quite Dawn French...

On Sunday I did a Francis of Assisi and preached to 100 dogs, in Great Missenden Church to celebrate 25 years of Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, whose headquarters is not far away in a converted stud farm at Saunderton.

Hearing dogs began in a Portakabin, but has now become the second largest assistance dogs charity in the UK, placing about 1,400 specially trained dogs with deaf people. Many of the animals are rescue dogs. The whole operation calls into question patronising and sentimental views of animals. It also challenges the odd habit of defining exceptional people by what they can't do, and putting them in a box. A hearing dog, for many profoundly deaf people, is a good way out of the box.

Not only are recipients able to tackle daily tasks at home and at work more easily, but the dogs have a considerable confidence boosting impact on the whole context of their lives. These are working animals like shepherd dogs. 8 million people used to watch One Man and his Dog — it's fascinating to see working partnerships like this on the streets of Britain as well as the hillsides of Wales and Cumbria.

It's always energizing to be with dedicated people, but seeing this partnership in action, and the way in which it turns round the isolation that deaf people often experience, was a real joy.

Incidence of hearing loss is going up, and present demand indicates a need to double the size of the charity towards a target of 3,000 dogs. That's something of a quantum leap (from £5m to £10m at today's prices) but when you consider that there are 2,000 profoundly deaf people in the Thames Valley alone it seems anything but far-fetched.

Thanks to a fantastic group of people for a positive and happy afternoon, especially deaf recipients I met, and the charity's supporters and workers. Particular thanks to Peter, Ruth and Ann from Hearing Dogs, and Abi for so ably signing words I would have thought were impossible to sign, like "Buckinghamshire" and "Hammarskjold!" It was good to work with Roger Williams, our diocesan chaplain for deaf people. Believe it or not, there were absolutely no K9 noises off during the celebration (not even during the sermon)!