Fathers and brothers

Six months ago, almost to the day, Miles Wright, youngest of four brothers, died after a long battle with cancer. I knew him relatively slightly, despite us being almost exact university and school contemporaries. My time at Ampleforth also overlapped with that of older Wrights, David and Martin, now Fr. Ralph and Abbot Timothy. Finally, the eldest brother, Peter (Fr. Stephen) has always been a very good friend of all the Davis family.

The three surviving brothers celebrated Mass in memory of Miles yesterday, at the little church of SS Gregory and Augustine, Oxford. I was privileged to be one of only a couple of handfuls of friends and family invited along, and to lunch afterwards. It was good to catch up with the brethren.

Each gave the assembly a short spiel about what has made him tick in life: Stephen - just off to spend eight weeks with Ampleforth's daughter community in Zimbabwe - has for a long time involved himself closely in the charismatic movement. Ralph many years ago moved from Ampleforth to join its now long independent foundation in St Louis, Missouri: he is a much published poet and veteran pro life campaigner. And Timothy, just approaching the end of seven years in Rome, teaching at the Beda, has become an authority on Christian-Muslim relations, and shortly takes up a teaching post in a North American university.

Third Wright: forthright, his verdict on Rome given with a question: "What sort of Church is it that requires a newly appointed Cardinal to spend €5000 in order to get properly togged up?" Ecumenism? "The Ordinariate: a complete waste of time!"  Other religions? "Yes Muslims and Christians can pray together, but not with Hindus and Buddhists."

We need to talk about Michael

I rode - a Boris bike - from Westminster to Paddington yesterday via the North bank of the Serpentine. If you are used to normal English temperatures, then wearing a Burqa - this is just one of many women I saw there who were - must be a trial on such a hot afternoon.

I omitted to say in my last post how much I enjoyed meeting again my school contemporary Michael, over from Los Angeles, in my excitement to describe our visit to The Bankside Gallery. Why are old friends better than recent ones? Not only had we been in the same school house, but we also overlapped at Oxford; yet we could never be said to have been close. So why bother to reestablish contact after all this time? We concluded it was because then was such a formative period in our lives. Maybe also ranks need closing: others we knew better at school are now dead.

Narrating our respective stories (the abridged version) made me reflect upon my good fortune. Michael, for all his celebrity as a professor twice over, has had to live through bereavement, loneliness and (to a great extent) exile from the country he calls home: he could be said to suffer from nostalgia, in its original sense. From his standpoint, my stable life in a beautiful part of England, supported by my wife and family, seems enviable indeed.

Two important things we are both it seems glad to find ourselves still sharing: good health and our Faith. Returning from the South Bank, Michael and I went to Vespers in the richly-decorated Lady Chapel of Westminster Cathedral. This was a first for me, and I was impressed, but at the same time a little alarmed by the triumphalist note sounded by placing poor old John Southworth's body in the middle of the main nave aisle in preparation for his feast day (tomorrow). What does martyr veneration do to foster better mutual understanding between Christians and those of other religious persuasions in our midst?

Talking the walk

In existence for almost a decade, Oasis International Foundation works to promote mutual knowledge and understanding between Christians and Muslims. Earlier this week, its Roman Catholic founder urged us all to recognise that our epoch is one of a "physical mixing of various - secular and religious - world views... The fruit is that in dialogue we deepen our own faith, but also live well with our neighbours: they too come closer to God." Christians (and by implications Muslims), he said, need to live their faith in every dimension of human existence - not just "calmly sip their tea".

Sarah Thorley's talk to Cheltenham Inter Faith last evening was not about tea-drinking, but about the walks between places of worship she has been organising in South London over the past many years. What she said resonated a little with the theme of my recent Tablet article, but discussing that later, Sarah was reluctant to appropriate the word "pilgrimage" to what she runs; and "penitence" was not on her agenda either. Indeed, she seemed to encourage people of no faith to join in, which seemed to me perverse.

The talk itself was put across with infectious enthusiasm, and matches well a daily meditation I have just read, from the Henri Nouwen Society:

Growing into the Truth We Speak

Can we only speak when we are fully living what we are saying?  If all our words had to cover all our actions, we would be doomed to permanent silence!  Sometimes we are called to proclaim God's love even when we are not yet fully able to live it.  Does that mean we are hypocrites?  Only when our own words no longer call us to conversion.  Nobody completely lives up to his or her own ideals and visions.  But by proclaiming our ideals and visions with great conviction and great humility, we may gradually grow into the truth we speak.  As long as we know that our lives always will speak louder than our words, we can trust that our words will remain humble.

Understanding Islam

As a Summerfield Trustee, one of my proudest achievements was to establish the Summerfield Lecture within the Cheltenham Festival of Literature. Our first lecturer was the then little-known Will Hutton, trailing his seminal book, The State We're In. As grant givers, we wanted to be visible within the community so those in need of funds would know where to come, but more than this I felt we had a responsibility to explore big ideas - and where more appropriate to do this than within our own local festival of ideas?

The Summerfield Lecture seems to have morphed in recent years: last night's featured Fiona Reynolds, on the role of the National Trust: admirable speaker, but hardly cutting edge stuff. (Perhaps this is sour grapes - I am not now invited.)

Which yesterday was just as well, as another foundation, now well enmeshed in our Festival, provided an excellent alternative at the same hour: Coexist have sponsored a number of challenging events this year, including Mary Robinson's, in their quest for an expansion of what they term religious literacy. To the extent that hostility to faith-based ideas stems from ignorance, they must be on the right track.

Certainly "Understanding Islam" was a revelatory session - and (judging by the searching questions it elicited) not just for us. Why don't you hold things sacred? the Muslim world asks. Is the price of our intellectual freedom that nothing is sacred?

A London-based Imam, Shaykh Ahmad Saad al-Azhari recited (aided by his iPad) four separate passages from the Qur'an; each one was then translated by commentator Abdul-Rehman Malik, and expanded upon by both the Imam and Dr. Mona Siddiqui (her voice familiar from Thought for the day).

We learnt that for Islam, the God of Abraham is a secret God, longing to be known. So he gives love, but he is not, as for us Christians, love itself. We believe he has revealed himself in the person of Jesus: Jesus (for Muslims) is both the bridge and the gulf - immaculately conceived by Mary, yes, but though of divine spirit, the servant, not the son of God.

We were told this was just a taster session, but I've said it before: we need a follow up mechanism, so that those whose minds are fired up by Festival events can meet again to help one another further along their paths of discovery. Come on, organisers! Where is the Cheltenham Continuing Festival... of Ideas?

"Not in our time"

Composer Richard Blackford's ambitious and impressive work of this title was premiered last night to great applause. It made up the second half of a Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert - an add-on to this Summer's Cheltenham Music Festival. In the first half, works by Copeland and Barber, and narrator Simon Callow, set the sombre scene for this 9/11 tenth anniversary: his was just the right timbre of voice for a grave message - in essence that, following our disastrous response to 9/11, we must work harder for peace.

Caroline felt "Not in our time" was rather too uniformly loud and hectic (the choruses were terrific); but I admired its urgency and compassion. The twin towers were echoed by two male soloists, two choirs, two Latin hymns, each also sung in translation and two time scales (the 11th and 21st Centuries). It's a seriously clever piece, and my only concern is that its effectivenes may be found to depend on its timeliness for this particular occasion.

You can just make out, in the centre left of my photograph, a percussionist with the most wonderful billiard ball head.