Skip to main content

#It's Complicated

This is a piece that I originally posted yesterday as a tweet, in its 1 stanza, 280 character form. But like Twitter itself I have now doubled the amount of characters.

I've said here before that I will one day get a t-shirt printed by my oft repeated refrain of "It's complicated." Indeed it's more than that, every one of these issues is complex, and necessarily so. To reduce them to binary choices or simple t-shirt slogans results in bad decisions being made, "us and them" polarities being drawn up, with those on "the other side" of any discussion being dismissed of as the bad guys, and sweeping assumptions about who will be on what side of any particular argument and why. It's an approach not just fostered by social media, but especially by some elements in local and national mainstream media, and some political parties and factions within other parties and movements capitalise on it. But it is toxic and people who should know better (including myself at times) feed the beast... 

Even longer blog-posts aren't necessarily the best forum to engage in these issues, because if people engage at all many inevitably just pick out bits that either support their positions or which they can use to beat you with. Indeed after a period when I would have dashed off a Dominic Cummings-like epic blog on myriad subjects that had got my goat, I eventually decided that it generally wasn't helping my mental health and I was fooling myself thinking that my humble blog had sufficient followers to make a difference in any debate, even within the narrow circles of the Methodist Church in Ireland or some of the spheres I operate within the wider world. So I largely stopped... Didn't mean that I stopped thinking about such matters but I generally exercised my grand unified theories within the earshot of people prepared to put up with me, and indeed discuss things with me at more length, to help shape my thinking as I sought to shape theirs. Indeed I have often said that I actually think with my mouth open, not knowing what I fully think until I have articulated it... And I need the responses of others to help reshape that thinking. So that said, here's the revised poem:

It’s complicated. 
Race, Policing, History, 
Equality, Justice, Reconciliation, 
Environment, Economics, 
Politics, Religion, Sexuality, 
Ethics, Heath, Abortion. 
None of these, 
and many, many more 
are just a binary 
For or Against. 
And none 
are best addressed in a Tweet.

It’s complicated. 
Freedom of expression,
Toleration, Gender Relations,
Human Fertility, Faith and Culture,
Class, Divorce, Euthanasia,
Ageism, Addiction.
None of these, 
or any of the above
will be resolved 
by taking sides
or talking heads.
And none 
are best addressed without grace.

Selah
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that
2 comments
Read more

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65
3 comments
Read more

Anointed

There has been a lot of chatter on social media among some of my colleagues and others about the liturgical and socio-political niceties of Saturday's coronation and attendant festivities, especially the shielding of the anointing with the pictured spoon - the oldest and perhaps strangest of the coronation artefacts. Personally I thought that was at least an improvement on the cloth of gold canopy used in the previous coronation, but (pointless) debates are raging as to whether this is an ancient practice or was simply introduced in the previous service to shield the Queen from the TV cameras, not for purposes of sacredness, but understandable coyness, if she actually had to bare her breast bone in puritan 1950s Britain. But as any church leader knows, anything performed twice in a church becomes a tradition. All this goes to show that I did actually watch it, while doing other things - the whole shooting match from the pre-service concert with yer wumman in that lemon-
2 comments
Read more