Obedience

Obedience may seem a strange subject for me to pontificate about but you needn't worry, I am naturally going to subvert it completely.
When I was a child, well before I had the life changing experience of realising that I am an INFJ, my mother used to tell me that she couldn't make me out. Apart from indicating the obvious fact that my mother and I were never going to be on the same page, what she was usually meaning was that, to use her words, I was a strange mixture of absolute conformity and absolute independence. I was and am quite capable of being totally obedient in certain situations while feeling free to subvert the same authority to which I had been compliant a moment before. She could never tell which side I was going to come down on, and of course my reaction to her also could never be predicted. The most extreme example of this was one of many occasions when she threatened to put her head in the oven and I replied, 'Go on, then, but you're wasting your time because natural gas won't kill you'. She asked how I knew it was natural gas and never made that particular threat again!
My existing 'authority problem' crystallised in my twenties with my experience of religious life and the realisation that I was never going to be obedient to those turds. A major turning point was my realisation that the Christian saying of 'in his will is our peace' had only ever resulted in heartache and abuse for me. I realised that my peace was actually in my own will, not anyone else's, and thus my initiation into the magical worldview began. Of course I took to Starhawk's analysis of power over and power with, like a duck to water, and then discovered anarchist ideas about power and authority. I can have power but authorities over me have authority. The reflexive idea of obeying myself sounds strange at first, but locates both power and authority in myself.
Another idea which was very influential on me was an article in a monastic journal I read when a novice about discernment, discretion and prudence. Obviously discretion and prudence are not really me, but this idea of being able to discern is something which hit me like a hammer blow, and probably that's when obedience really ended for me. From now on I wouldn't take people's shit because I myself would discern what was really going on.
Discern isn't really a word used much in the pagan or magical world, but it probably best equates to our idea of divining something. In my subversive way I ask a few questions which without fail show what is going on:
Does this situation look like the way I think things should be?
Where is the authority in this situation?
Where is the power?
Where is the money going?
Who benefits?
Will this give me power or take it away?

As always these questions have proved useful in my current work situation, where as I said recently the situation has rather imploded. The new manager has handed in her notice already, and in fact commented in staff meeting when she announced this that senior management of the company wanted to be present when she made the announcement. 'I'm not a robot,' she said. How I laughed afterwards!
Oh alright, I know you want a soundtrack to this post:

An Update and More Street Art

This was going to be the post I have mooted several times, against quack remedies, but it isn 't going to be now. I am watching a wonderful film which manages to star both William Hartnell and Peter Lorre, and shows holiday makers on the beach wearing suits, so I will settle down and reflect a bit.

I haven't been posting here that much because I have been rather lacking the energy to do so. My work has suddenly gone from being reletively sensible to being stupid as hell. I am delighted to say that all the three people at my level united in a complaint and one of my colleagues has blown the whistle in addition. I am of course hugely proud of my colleagues, but nonetheless am applying for other jobs. This is just one of the times when the world nudges one to make a move, and if they are not going to let their staff report incidents, I'm off.

I am delighted to say that I have a new consultant rheumatologist who took one look at my knees and is starting me on one of the new expensive treatments. This is actually what I have been hoping for all along, because they really are good but you have to have tried a number of other treatments first. One of the reasons I haven't done my post about quack remedies was that I couldn't face writing about the fact that some turds in the world will happily sell people expensive 'remedies' which don't work. The most bizarre is probably the idea that coffee enemas will cure cancer when killing it or cutting it out is clearly the only way to go. Some people of course actually believe that these things work, and I have been reading about the sad case of a woman who set herself up as the 'Wellness Warrior'. She unfortunately had a very rare cancer which kills you very slowly and at a frighteningly young age was told the only option was to have an arm amputated and that would cure it. She didn 't do that, but tried 'alternative' treatments, and in fact didn't seem to be ill because of the nature of her cancer, but did actually die.

The pictures are of various street art pieces. I really appreciate their humour. 

Meanwhile the world hurtles on towards its untimely end. It does actually begin to look as if the world will end in my lifetime. What I really don't understand is the people who keep on reproducing in this environment! Right, I'm off out into the sun.

Turds: the Archbishop of Westminster Again

If I have been rather quiet here it is because I have been having one of those stagnant times before a flurry of activity. The activity has arrived with a bang and amongst other things my colleagues and I have complained about management and I am applying for other jobs. One of the most satisfying things is that the public downfall of a particularly nasty piece of work who has been on the List for years, continues apace.

Archbishop tried to discredit BBC film on church links to abuse

The most senior Catholic leader in England and Wales went to extraordinary lengths to try to discredit a BBC documentary on child sexual abuse and its cover-up by the church, the Guardian can disclose.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, publicly accused the BBC of bias and malice before the documentary was aired in 2003. Documents seen by the Guardian show he also lobbied the BBC’s director of news, wrote to all priests in his archdiocese urging them not to speak to BBC journalists, and lodged a formal complaint against the programme’s makers.
The BBC’s programme complaints unit (PCU) rejected the complaint, and the BBC governors’ programme complaints committee dismissed his appeal against that decision. Nichols refused to apologise to the programme-makers.
Last month the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) criticised Nichols for putting the church’s reputation before the welfare of abuse survivors. In a report, IICSA said Nichols’s response to the BBC programme was “misplaced and missed the point”.

The documentary, part of the investigative series Kenyon Confronts on BBC One, included interviews with survivors who claimed the church covered up cases of sexual abuse. It tracked down Father James Robinson, a Catholic priest who fled to the US after being accused of sexual abuse and who received financial support from the Catholic archdiocese of Birmingham for seven years before he was extradited, convicted and jailed.
At the time of the documentary, Nichols was archbishop of Birmingham and chair of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults.
At a press conference before the programme was broadcast, Nichols accused the BBC of “using the licence fee to pay unscrupulous reporters trying to recirculate old news and to broadcast programmes that are biased and hostile”.

He added: “That this programme has been allowed to progress this far shows either malice towards the church or a total lack of judgment or of managerial responsibility.” He demanded the BBC justify the renewal of the licence fee.
While the documentary was being made, Nichols wrote to priests in his archdiocese urging them not to speak to BBC reporters working on it. “If you are approached please remember you are not advised to be cooperative. You may, quite properly, refuse to take part in any questioning or interview. This is my advice,” he wrote.
Before broadcast, Nichols wrote to Richard Sambrook, then the BBC’s director of news, saying a re-examination of historic sexual abuse cases was not in the public interest. He claimed reporters had telephoned a priest at 2am, acted discourteously and inconsiderately to a priest who had just undergone major surgery, and “cornered” a priest in a residential care home to question him.

Sambrook told the Guardian: “My recollection of the difficult meeting and correspondence with Cardinal Nichols is that he was entirely focused on trying to discredit the BBC’s journalism in the hope of diverting criticism of the church. Fortunately the BBC’s journalism was sufficiently robust to see off such attempts. He showed little interest in wider questions about uncovering abuse or the welfare of the survivors.”
After the programme was broadcast on 15 October 2003, Nichols lodged a formal complaint with the PCU, claiming BBC reporters used underhand methods to gain access to elderly and infirm priests.
The PCU rejected Nichols’ complaint, saying there were no grounds for his claim that the Kenyon Confronts team behaved inappropriately. It said the investigation was “conducted properly and in line with BBC producers’ guidelines” and there was no evidence of serious breaches of editorial standards.

Some of the 11 sworn witness statements from nuns and priests provided by Nichols to the PCU contradicted his allegations that reporters had not properly identified themselves. Evidence from recordings of some encounters also showed his claims to be false.
Nichols claimed one priest had been left distressed by a visit from two members of the Kenyon Confronts team, who were alleged to be hectoring and intimidating. However, the priest’s statement said the pair were “well-mannered, polite and had respect for my office, although I was glad when I had finished speaking to them. They were not unpleasant or malicious in the way they spoke to me.”
Nichols appealed to the BBC governors’ programme complaints committee against the PCU’s adjudication, and in May 2005 the committee rejected the appeal.
After the decision, Paul Kenyon, the programme’s presenter, and Paul Woolwich, its executive producer, wrote to Nichols saying the archbishop had tarnished the reputation of those who worked on the documentary. “We believe an apology to set the record straight would now be appropriate.”

Nichols replied: “I see no need for me to offer an apology.”
Last month IICSA said Nichols’ response to the programme should have focused on “recognising the harm caused to the complainants and victims. Instead, [it] led many to think that the church was still more concerned with protecting itself than the protection of children.”
After the report was published, the Tablet, a respected Catholic weekly, said the inquiry’s criticisms raised questions about Nichols’s fitness for office.

In a statement to the Guardian, Nichols apologised for at the time failing to sufficiently acknowledge two positive elements of the programme: giving a platform to abuse survivors and locating Fr Robinson.
He pointed out he had offered to give a live interview to the BBC at the time of the broadcast. Woolwich said it had not been possible to broadcast a live interview immediately after the broadcast of a pre-recorded programme, and Nichols had rejected an offer to appear live on Newsnight the same night or the Today programme the following morning.
Nichols’s statement said: “I was annoyed at the approach of the programme-makers who gave a slanted presentation of the real problems we were seeking to address … I accept that my frustration at the approach of the programme-makers led me not to give sufficient attention to the suffering of the victims of abuse perpetrated by the priest in question, although I had already met with all but one of them.

“A more thorough listening to the experiences of victims and survivors has now become central to the church’s approach and we will continue to adjust our work in safeguarding in light of this victim-centred approach.” Source

What an absolute turd. Of course as tends to be the case, as one gets it, other turds go on the List, since a witch's work never ends. Don't worry, there is one person who has been on it longer than Nichols, and I can feel his reward coming as well!

Thought for the Day with Tom Hardy

Now that gets the Hound's seal of approval for Enlightened Consciousness.
Oh alright  if you insist on a bedtime story...