Christmas for Atheists

You might think this is a bad time of year to be an atheist. It certainly makes me feel a little shifty (well shiftier than usual) to sing ‘Lo he abhors not the Virgin womb’ with a straight face*.

It makes it worse, really, that I can still remember the soft focus nativities of my childhood, when I still had the hope of the story of the Christ child sparkling in my shining eyes. Despite some fairly early onset scepticism (in particular I found the whole Noah’s Ark thing a little much to swallow – mass genocide dressed up as a jolly childish story, anyone?), I did stick it out into my teenage years. But pretty soon it became impossible to ignore that the organised religion found inside those solid, comforting Church walls contained a fair amount of social control along with a great deal of beauty, but – for me at least – precious little truth.

Losing my religion was a painful experience to be honest, and not one that I would wish on anyone; it left me jittery and afraid for many years. There was the initial relief of letting go of a system of beliefs that seemed to have more interest with who I shared a bed with than – say – the elimination of poverty. But after that, it was a cold loss, the loss of the love and care of a greater force, the loss of a feeling of belonging, yet another dislocation from the certainties of my childhood. Even the word atheism seemed cold and dead – defined by a nothingness, a lack.

The stuff you are told as a child, by the people you love and trust, is hard to let go of. Impossible, even. When I read Paradise Lost, many years after I ceased believing in an afterlife, I found my sleep suddenly deeply disturbed by my own childhood visions of the Hell mixed with Milton’s fervid imaginings. I was told to be afraid of Hell then, and I guess on some level I still am and always will be. Adult logic is overridden by fear, cold fear.

In recent years, though, I have started to take a more positive view of my lack of religious faith. The thing is, once you start to believe in the idea that this life, your life and mine, is all there is, well it gives you a bit of sharp focus really. Better make the most of it kids, cause this is it. No eternity strumming on a harp on a cloud flapping a set of coolio wings. No. Best have your fun now, here, on earth.

And once you get rid of the idea of giving thanks, of worshipping a Greater Thingy, you can concentrate on being proud of what human beings can achieve, have achieved. I believe that human beings are capable of astonishing things, breathtaking things. So many wonderful things in this world created only by a bunch of monkeys in shoes, with our hands and our brains and all the love in our hearts.

We are also capable of great evil, of course, but it is up to us, other humans, to stop that, to prevent it, to say it is unacceptable. Once you realise that we are in charge of our own destinies, and control is not delegated to The Big Man (or blamed on Satan), then we can grow the hell up as a species and maybe start being nice to each other for a change.

And the other thing is, once you let go of the more outrageous aspects of Christian theology, you can start to see the truth, the beautiful truth at the centre of Christianity and all its rituals. I could probably do without another conversation about whether Christmas is a Christian or a pagan festival this year or indeed ever. It’s obviously both, and neither, and more. It is a HUMAN festival. An absolute necessity in the middle of winter, when the arrival of spring seems a far off impossibility. In the very darkest days of the year, we need belief that the Sun/Son will be born again; we need to light a candle against the darkness out there.

We need a reminder of what’s important – and what is important? Love, kin, kindness, friends, feasting, faith, love again. Mostly love.

And that leaves me with the very best part of my late-period-atheism, and that’s my rediscovery of Jesus. TOP BLOKE, Jesus. Not, in my humble opinion, the Son of God, what with God not existing and so on, but still a very very marvellous fellow indeed. A radical, a pacifist, a masterful story teller, with a kindness and a patience and a tolerant understanding of human nature tempered with loving forgiveness that we could all, most of all our ‘great’ ‘religious’ ‘leaders’, do well to emulate.

I often think I might set up a little club for folk like me: Atheists for Jesus? Well maybe not quite, but I think sometimes his good name needs protecting against the worst excesses of ‘men’ of ‘God’ like his “Eminence” Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, who stated with great confidence on the Today programme this year that Jesus would have been opposed to gay marriage. Go away, Father. Go away and read the gospels. You might be surprised at the love and tolerance there. (But then again, this is the same man who said that a lack of faith is “the greatest of evils’ and blamed atheism for war, so maybe I am being too optimistic.)

The thing is, religion doesn’t cause war either. It’s humans, only ever humans; it’s all human doing – suffering, war, love, architecture, art, music, children, poverty, happiness. You and me, our friends, all our worst and best feelings – they are all human made. Life, human life, is in our hands and always has been.

Isn’t it terrible? Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it true?

And that, all of that, is what I am celebrating this Christmas. Human beauty and pain and misery and most of all love and life.

I’ll drink to that this Christmas/Hannukah/Yule/Whatever, and I hope you will join me.

*this is not my least favourite line though – that accolade goes to ‘Christian children all must be, Mild obedient good as he.’ This is sheer propaganda.  RISE UP RISE UP KIDS, read the bible! Jesus was OFTEN naughty, knocking tables flying for a start.

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The End is Nigh

Blimey that went quick didn’t it? 2012 I mean. I swear it was only the other day I was casually looking at my watch to check how much longer before I could politely exit yet another New Year’s Party and go home to get into my pyjamas, and then WHOOSH in a whirl of packed lunches and overdue library books and times tables and unsigned homework diaries – LO! it’s nearly the end of December again and I STILL HAVEN’T WRITTEN MY CHRISTMAS CARDS.

But wait, I may not need to, because according to that great source of wisdom, People On The Internet, the world is just about to end.

Can I be the only one who thought, when hearing this prediction, that the 21st December is just a little late? Two days after last posting day – who needs the apocalypse then? A week earlier and you’d miss not only the horror of trying to remember the names of the children of those old friends you haven’t seen for years (and how to spell them) but more importantly the stomach-clenching fear of sending a card addressed – catastrophically – to Mr and Mrs HeRanOffWithHisSecretary*. I am sure there are some people who, when hearing the news of impending divorce, rush to scribble his name out of their address book, but I am not one of them. In 2012 there must be an app for it: AdultererAmend, perhaps.

Anyway, as we have all got lots of time this week to spare – no point cleaning the bathroom if the apocalypse is coming, and you can tell your mother in law that from me – why not try this quick quiz of the year to while away these last hours before the Horsemen arrive and snaffle the last of the Quality Street.

(Actually that’s one good thing about the imminent arrival of the apocalypse – you might as well open that tin of chocolates you’ve been saving for Christmas, and make sure there’s only the coconut ones left by Friday. Or indeed later tonight, if you get a move on. Well why the hell not? The world’s about to end.)

THE QUIZ OF THE YEAR 2012

1. Is the world about to end on Friday?

a. Yes, it had better, because I work for the Cancun Tourist Board and I bought a whole batch of T-shirts saying ‘My mum went to witness the end of days and all she bought me was this lousy t-shirt” and I didn’t get them on sale or return.

b. Yes, because the Mayans were right about many things including the fact that the world is a big old turtle and human sacrifice is vital for the growth of crops. Gosh you do look tired, why not have a little lie down on this sacrificial altar er I mean comfy stone sofa right next to my greenhouse.

c. Yes, I am prepared to believe so although I am still quite sceptical about ‘global warming’, which is a conspiracy put about by bleeding heart liberals and yes I am from the Mid West of America how can you tell.

d. No, but only because I have wrapped all my flipping presents now and I’ll be very irritated if it was all in vain. I even did matching tags and some fancy ribbons. It took me ages.

2. What did you think of the Olympics?

a. It was a terrible waste of time and money. But I work for the Rio Tourist Board and ours will be much better. Honest.

b. I thought it was a terrible waste of time and money because the tv and papers kept saying so and then I started to quite enjoy it which was all a bit odd and then thank goodness the tv and papers started to tell me I could enjoy it so that was a terrific relief.

c. I basically cried my way through the whole thing, and as for the Paralympics I was almost hospitalised with the sobbing.

d. I can only remember Boris stuck on a wire, that cyclist looking ultra-mod-cool and then the Spice Girls and some black cabs at the end. Oh and David Cameron dad-dancing, though that might have been the Jubilee.

3. Did they find the God Particle in the Large Hadron Collider?

a. I have absolutely no idea. All I know about Physics I learned from the Big Bang Theory.

b. Yes possibly. That’s maybe why the world is ending on Friday, someone’s about to drop the God Particle in the afternoon when they come back from their Christmas party at lunchtime and they’ve had too many shandies. You know what those physicist are like – one sniff of the barmaid’s apron and they are always dropping vital particles.

c. I don’t know, ask God.

d. I don’t know, ask the Mayans. On Friday.

So there we are, the quiz of the year. Grab yourself a glass of Christmas cheer, a handful of Montilemar, and give it a go!

Answers will appear on Saturday 22nd December.

MAYBE.

*do people still have secretaries to run off with? Or do men have affairs with their iPads these days?

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Caveat, caveat

A long time ago, a really long time ago, back when George Michael was straight and Jimmy Saville was still a much loved family entertainer, I studied for a law degree. I know this seems unlikely but nevertheless it is undoubtedly true. Not only do I remember it, really pretty clearly, I also have clear documentary proof in a drawer somewhere, filed between some old receipts for a nice pastel batwing sweater from Richard Shops and a signed photo of Marc Bolan saying ‘Keep a little Marc in your heart!”.

Now the reasons why I decided to study for a law degree are a little lost in the mists of time, but I am guessing they were something to with something I’d seen on the telly. It must have been really, because when I made that choice I had been nowhere and seen nothing of the world.

In fact I had only the vaguest idea of what a lawyer did except what I had seen on Rumpole of the Bailey. But it did look quite cool, and I liked the look of the wig, and also women seemed to do it. Women with nice cars and FLATS in LONDON. And although I had only ever been to London twice (once to Harrods, once to the Natural History Museum) I was pretty sure it wasn’t all fancy hats and dinosaur bones. It was where I wanted to be.

(Also, there was a 1970s programme I loved from the US called Paper Chase about law students at Harvard Law School, lolling about in the sunshine and chatting about precedent, with their long flicky hair and extra wide flares flapping lightly in the breeze. And that was just the men – well this was the 1970s after all. In fact, on reflection I was mainly just interested in being a law STUDENT and having a flat. I hadn’t got much further than that. Still a girl has to dream.)

The story of my escapades as law student, frolicking gaily through the stacks of heavy bound law reports clutching my fluffy Baby Lawyer Wig – that is for another time. But I warn you there are many hilarious anecdotes about that time we got confused between consensus ad idem and consensus facit legem – you’d better hold onto your sides!

But I even though I haven’t practised law for ten years or so, I still use my legal training every day. My law degree, and the practice of law that came after it, tidied up my mind and straightened out my synapses in ways I didn’t recognise at the time but for which I am hugely grateful. The ability to see situations in a logical way, to see patterns between the ways people behave, to always take a rational perspective while never losing sight of the human, emotional side of every situation – these are things that I see, more and more as the years go by – are incredibly useful skills and surprisingly rare.

So this week when I read about the death of Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse at the Duchess of Cambridge’s hospital who was tricked by the Australian radio DJ pranksters, I thought of a legal principle I had not brought to mind for many years. I first heard of her death – as I hear about almost everything these days – on Facebook and Twitter, and almost immediately there followed the justification and defence of those responsible for the ‘prank’ – that the nurse must already have been unhappy, that there must have been underlying issues there.

Well, I thought, so what? In the criminal and civil law, I was taught the eggshell skull principle. You take your victim as you find them. If you donk someone on the head and their skull shatters, because it’s unusually fragile, well don’t come whining to me about how you couldn’t have foreseen it. That’ll teach you to not go around donking people on the head.

Life is, says the law, a game of consequences. If you behave like a dick, whether it’s donking people on the head, or bullying some weaker kid at school, or ringing up people just trying to do their job on the other side of the world to lie to them for a ‘joke’ knowing that your actions will get them into deep trouble – well, if the victim of your dickishness gets very upset, and does something that YOU wouldn’t have done, something YOU consider extreme, well you had better just suck up the fact that you are responsible. Morally responsible. Because you can’t go around expecting everyone you meet to be in robust mental health. Life isn’t like that. Come now, everyone knows this. The world is in fact full of miserable, lonely people, some of whom are feeling very very low indeed at any given moment, and you never know what’s behind the façade that many of us wear to get through the day.

This was hugely relevant as a lawyer, and it’s every bit as relevant in the classroom. You just never know who is sitting in front of you. What they saw before they left home this morning, what their girlfriend has just told them, what they woke up crying about in the middle of the night.

It might seem a little daunting, to think of the misery that might be lurking behind the smiling faces. To imagine what people are really thinking, really feeling. But actually the solution is in fact quite simple. In the words of Plato (back to the Latin again) – be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Be gentle, life is hard. Don’t donk anyone on the head, even if you’re having a very bad day.

And cheap pranks at the expense of other people, even in Australia, are never never funny.

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Half Term Blues

It seems a long time since the start of term doesn’t it? Does it to you? It does to me. As usual, I began September in a frenzied whirl of sparklingly good intentions. All items of clothing labelled clearly; the late summer sunlight glinting off the pointy tips of freshly-sharpened pencils and freshly-polished shoes. A homework rota pinned to the fridge and everywhere the pervading smell of a Fresh Start.

Fast-forward seven weeks and quite a different picture emerges. The FreshStart™ scent has been replaced by quite a different smell – the lingering odour of the Path to Hell, and something rotting behind the bread bin. The pencils are blunt and the shoes are scuffed and someone used the homework rota to line the hamster cage. And come to think of it, when did you last see the hamster? But thank goodness for those name labels because at least you know who to return that far-too-large cardigan to tomorrow.

Perhaps you don’t recognise this picture at all. Perhaps there is never an unnamed lingering odour in your kitchen, which may or may not be attributed to a lost pet or perhaps the rotting of your abandoned standards. Perhaps your homework diary is always signed and you always know where the swimming hats are and what day the bins are emptied and you never have to use a Sainsburys carrier bag to wrap the potato peelings because you’ve run out of green bags and if so LUCKY YOU and can you come and stay here for a bit because I need to know your secret.

I really do try to be organised, honestly. I have all the right equipment – calendars and notebooks and even, alarmingly, an in-tray and out-tray (both piled high by mid-October with the usual detritus of crusty Macdonald’s toys and curling junk mail). But if it’s one thing I’ve learned by now it’s that the right equipment simply won’t help cure your underlying psychological issues. All the lovely Cath Kidston letter racks in the world won’t help me remember to pay the milk bill on time.

The squishy centre of my weak spot is the Birthday Issue. Fundamentally I just don’t have space in my head or my life to remember all the birthdays I need to remember in my life let alone actually Do Something About Them. And yet, and yet, the Birthdays just keep coming, relentlessly and ever increasing, dividing and multiplying like ever-marching broomsticks. That feeling when you see the calendar and think, March the 12th, March the 12th?? The 12th?? Of March??? Oh gracious that sounds FAMILIAR. But why?? The worst case scenario is that this is your actual own wedding anniversary, which is the kind of forgetfulness that you might get away with once, but after two years running I’m saying that’s hard to justify and may require some sort of trip to Paris the next year. Just make sure you write it down somewhere or – and here’s my tip (in fact my dad’s tip) – get your children to remember for you.

So birthdays, as you will gather, are not my strong point and – if you are reading this and you know me – well I really am genuinely sorry and all that and I promise you it’s nothing personal and it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. (The way you can tell if I love you or not, if you are interested, is if I’m very rude and sarcastic to you. Birthday cards don’t really come into it.) But they do say that everyone is good at something. I am wildly disorganised and only remember birthdays on the actual day, or possibly the day after, but there are many things I’m good at. Here are just a few:

  1. Burning myself, especially on piping hot food stuffs and candles.
  2. Going to the supermarket and forgetting the key thing I’ve gone for in the first place but coming home with some very nice biscuits.
  3. Competitive card games.
  4. Making very short lists.

The other thing I’m very good at, as you’ve probably guessed by now, is avoiding the thing I really need to do, by doing something else that quite frankly I don’t need to do quite so urgently. Like writing this, for example, when I should be packing my daughter’s bag for her school trip, leaving in the morning. Or, more accurately, ‘encouraging’ her to do it herself. Her response to my most recent, rather fervent, request to pack? ‘I’ll do it in the morning.’

I don’t know where she gets it from.

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The Sense of an Ending

For me, for many of us I guess, this the time of the year when everything feels like it’s coming to an end. The academic year can seem like a conveyor belt, carrying us along in the relentless cycle of terms and tests and end of year levels and key stages and shoving us, and our children, a little dazed and dizzy, to the next moving belt.

For our children, there can be a sense that they WANT to move on; the excitement of the new classroom, new teacher, feeling just a little more grown up.

I guess that mostly parents are a little more ambivalent about it. The passage of time is easy to miss when we are caught up in everyday life; the sight of your babies in school uniform, in a prom dress, in a graduation gown, is a shocking wake up call that the years have somehow slipped by in what can seem like a bit of a blur.

It’s a constant of life that time moves faster as we get older. You are just finishing off the last remnants of Easter eggs when you look up and you’re suddenly, unexpectedly, standing in the foothills of Christmas AGAIN. Summer comes and goes in a haze of dripping umbrellas and damp barbecues and before you know it, you’re sweatily hacking away at pumpkins.

And the six week summer holidays for example. When you were a kid they seemed endless – stretching out with the promise of endless golden-hued days punctuated only with visits from the ice cream van and the occasional wildly vicious water fight and some fairly concerted rolling down hills.

But as a parent, the summer holidays seem – well pretty flipping endless too, actually, punctuated by trying to ignore the incessant chimes of the ice cream van and trying to hide the Jammie Dodgers so that they don’t all disappear within half an hour of the Big Shop.

The summer holidays can seem particularly torturously lengthy for the working parent, a mish mash of fragile, patchwork arrangements held together with good will and some pretty frayed string.

But right now, at the end of the summer term, it feels like a time of change; a time to say goodbye to old routines and old groups and old friends. It is a constant of our lives that everything changes, and yet as human beings, adults and children, it’s a constant too that we struggle with it.

Perhaps that’s because when things stay the same, we can feel secure. We know who we are, if the landscape doesn’t alter. We are this person, in this group. When things shift, we find ourselves shifting too. When things shift, we can feel a little shifty, a touch drifty. We don’t know who we are, for a while. Things become unpredictable and in an unpredictable world, that makes us uncomfortable. We have to make our new place in this new landscape.

And we particularly don’t like to say goodbye. It makes us sad to know that we won’t see people that we care about every day, like we used to. We can feel lost and emotional about it. Strangely, this applies even when we don’t much like the people we are saying goodbye to – but if we love them, it can break our hearts.

There is a sense of an ending about this time of year, but it can be an illusion. The people, the settings, all the things we say goodbye to, they don’t disappear. Love and friendship and memories remain. Even if we don’t see those people again, they stay in our hearts, and our heads.

So goodbye to the old school year. And hello to the new – but not quite yet. First we have the summer, or what passes for it in England, and all the many ways we can think to have fun in the pouring rain.  That should take our minds off those gloomy goodbyes.

Take the summer to rest, to think, to read, to play. To reboot, refresh.

Good luck with the summer holidays, with finding a new hiding place for those Penguin bars and if it doesn’t stop raining soon, may God have mercy on us all.

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