MY WRITING LIFE
MAY 2024
Spring at Chartwell.
FAMILY AND FRIENDS
The month started with Linda and I having a lovely weekend in the High Weald of Kent, eating at a great local pub ‘The Greyhound’. This was getting ready for the woodland burial of Linda’s friend Kristin on the Monday. Sadly, it rained on the day of the burial, but there were nine of us and it was a really good occasion, ending with tea at Chiddingstone Castle.
Another sadness was Peter’s girlfriend Helen breaking up with him. He felt it badly. He has been distracting himself by raking driven lessons, has just passed the theory part and is well on her way to taking his driving test. And we have had a couple of very good lunches together.
On Saturday 11th the sun finally came out and Linda and I had the first of our summer salad lunches in the communal gardens. So relaxing and peaceful. I hope not the last!
Last weekend Linda visited her father, and I went to my friends Stuart and Pam just outside Southampton. It was so good to catch up.
The following day, Bank Holiday Monday, I joined the Roland clan for a family expedition to the Wildlife Photography Exhibition at the Natural History Museum, i.e. Martin and Ros, Ali with Emily and Max, and Chris and Jo with Tom and Jim. Very special!
The Ealing Rolands
WORK
May has seen a series of achievements!
- My audiobooks finally arrived. Next I will get the two interviews up on my websites.
- I sent out the blog on ‘God??’
- The blog on John’s Gospel also went out. I did a fair bit of research for this, including gong to the library of St Mellitus College and buying a copy of John Robinson’s argumentative book ‘The Priority of John’. I write some further thoughts on this further down.
- I still had almost 100 copies of ‘Daily Prayers from the World’s Faiths’ with photos in black and white instead of colour. (My mistake way back in December). So I sent copies to all 42 bishops in England and all 42 English cathedral deans. One bishop came back to me describing it as “interesting and delightful”. But following my meeting with Joe Hawes, dean of St Edmundsbury, I think that deans are the best possibility of having them stocked in cathedral shops, because a key ministry for cathedrals is ‘welcoming the stranger’.
- Another avenue is schools via SACRE, the statutory body in every borough which sets the guidelines for Religious Education. I had tea with the Kensington chair, Laurence Julius of Holland Park synagogue. He gave me some very useful tips on what to do next. He also criticised my portrayal of Judaism in the book. I took one particular criticism on board and have included these two sentences:
‘The climax of the year comes in early autumn with Rosh Hashanah (New Year) starting ten days of repenting (returning). The culmination is Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) which is kept by the whole community, religious and secular.’
- I have restarted revising my book ‘The Church has a Past – Has it got a Future’. I am at the start of part 2, covering all the changes of the past 20-odd years. I’ve finished war and politics; next is health.
- I want to try to sell more books by using Google Ads; you only pay if someone actually clicks on your ad. But I couldn’t get on. Google had blocked my account because of ‘violating their Complementary systems policy’. I don’t know what that is, and I only put one ad on Google fifteen months ago. But today, 31st March, I actually submitted my appeal via their online form and they reinstated me! Next month I must get down to start advertising my wares.
FILMS & TV
Linda and I saw two entertaining films this month, ‘The Fall Guy’ and ‘Hit Man’. The former was a fun film about a stunt man who returned to work after an injury and found his life being continually threatened, with the threats and his escapes getting more and more ridiculous. We both left the cinema laughing. ‘Hit Man’ was based on the true story of a college lecturer who worked part-time with the local police as a fake hit man, and got 70 people convicted for trying to arrange a contract killing. Again very enjoyable, even if the ending raised serious moral questions.
TV consisted of watching ‘The Piano’ – not as good as when it was on BBC, but eminently watchable. We also saw the Dispatches report on ordinary Palestinians inside Gaza. Dreadful. It was interesting how convinced ordinary Muslims Palestinians were that those who died in the bombing would go to paradise. I think their belief helped them to keep their humanity.
READING, including JOHN’S GOSPEL
Books: I have read ‘Siddartha’ by Herman Hesse, a famous German novel about Hinduism. Linda didn’t like it. I did . I think you have to know something about that religion first.
Finally, I have been reading John’s gospel, following the outline I suggested in my last blog, i.e. reading a chapter or two out aloud. I’m ing this with the first really modern translation, J B Phillips. I find it really works! It seems to me that each section has one particular audience in mind, and the sting is usually at the very end of the section. Here is how I think of the audiences whom John was writing for – so far:
Chapters 1-3: the disciples of John the Baptist who resisted joining the new Jesus community;
Chapter 4: the Samaritan mission;
Chapter 5: Jews, specially in Jerusalem, who had a critical attitude to Jesus;
Chapter 6 the same audience as the first letter of John, i.e. a semi-gnostic group within the various Christian communities.