Finding the plot

Something is stirring on the allotments of England.   Like pilgrims they come, on foot, or on two wheels, or on four.  They trudge up the lane with laden wheelbarrows, or carrying small packets of promise. All is industry –  the breaking of the hard earth, the mending of broken fences, the repair of the storm-lashed past and the sowing for the hopeful future.

They emerge back down lane clutching giant cabbagy things or oversized leeks (OK, OK, so I mean leeks bigger than my accidentally dwarf ones).

They stop to debate with one another what the season will bring.  Will it be deluge or drought, cruelty or kindness?   Already the early summer is giving way to late frosts, to confound the optimistic.

Each year brings something different: last year it was summer in spring, followed by something approaching autumn for most of summer.  Some years it’s downpours not drought that are the problem.   This year it’s off to a droughty start, but I wouldn’t put it past the Weather Controller to send months of rain to make up for lost time, starting in, say, June and lasting until about mid-August.

There are allotmenteers I know in their late 70s, others with painful arthritis or losing their sight, the young and old, gay and straight, men and women.

So this few, this happy few, this band of brothers and sisters, what drives us?  Well, (a) enjoying vegetables and (b) wanting to grow them cheaply obviously is a good starting point, but beyond that there’s a whole c-z of other motivators.  For some it’s the love of exercise.  For  others it’s being outdoors, and anything outdoors would do (I think I’m in that camp – the borderline claustrophobics).

Then there are the ones I suspect are the secret control freaks, whose allotments are the only things they get the final say over.  Those escaping from domestic angst.  Those looking for something to nurture.  Those hard-up and trying to save money.  Those growing for other people to sell or to use in restaurants.   Those who recognise that too much time on their hands is a bad thing, and that time is better filled with growing than with being slumped in front of Flog ‘em in the Attic, Escape to the Location, Diagnosis She Wrote, Pointless Link, or whatever else clogs up the arteries of afternoon TV these days.

Strangely, I think the people who don’t last at allotmenteering are the ones who (a) enjoy vegetables and (b) want to grow them cheaply, but don’t tick any of the other boxes listed above. And yes, if those are your only motivators then, frankly, you’re better off down Tesco’s (other supermarkets are also available).

I’ve known several people start allotments with a great surge of enthusiasm, only to abandon them months or perhaps a year later.  I did this myself in an earlier life, when my allotment under the South Downs in Eastbourne fast became a weed-infested chore rather than the Good Life experience I’d imagined.

The most common causes of allotment abandonment are as follows:

• The extraordinary and unforeseen rate at which weeds grow.

• The extraordinary and unforeseen rate at which things need watering in periods of drought or high temperature.

• The extraordinary and unforeseen rate at which courgettes grow – and indeed other things, leading to gluts of what’s already cheap in the shops by then.

• The Obligatory Old Man on the next allotment saying things like “Well you’re having a go, aren’t you, dear.”  (this uttered to a friend with Royal Horticultural Society training).

• The combined cruelty of pests, diseases, deer,  birds, thieves and weather, sometimes robbing you of things on the very cusp of the cooking pot.

• The friends who say they’ll do it with you and either disappear, argue about what to grow or turn out to be the control freaks mentioned above.

• The discovery that unless an allotment is right on your doorstep then finding the time to drive to it and do any work is surprisingly hard.

I’m lucky now:  my allotment is only a short walk away and the only delay in getting there is chatting to other allotmenteers en route – some of whom seem to have allotments for the express purpose of lying in wait to engage other allotmenteers in dialogue or monologue.

Funnily enough my biggest problem these days is that, having grown the stuff, I haven’t always got the energy to cook it.  There’s nothing more loony than staggering back from the allotment with a rustic basket groaning with produce – and then cooking vegetables from a bag in the freezer because it’s quicker and easier.

The key as in everything is to pace yourself. It’s better to start digging only a quarter of your allotment and make it work for you than dig it all over the first year and literally lose the plot in the summer.

As for outwitting the weather, the wise plant something for all eventualities and don’t take too much notice of the unreliable long-term forecasts. I’ll try melons this year in case it’s Mediterranean, and I’ve chosen drought-tolerant Pentland Crown potatoes and even planted a few chick peas on the advice of Alys Fowler in The Guardian.   The strawberries which went crazy in the early heat last year have now been extended to an extra bed.  Roll on Wimbledon!

But I won’t put all my allotment eggs in one basket, so I’ll think of a few things that won’t sulk if it rains all summer – lots of lovely lush spinach, some extra root vegetables maybe.  Any ideas gratefully appreciated!

And whatever the weather, I’ll love the birdsong, the digging, the nurturing, the  harvesting, the hope and despair, the chats with the Obligatory Old Man and – most of all – the chance to connect with nature and get dirt under my fingernails.

God and the gay

Have you heard about the latest huge church rows over the greedy bishop, the envious vicar, the gossiping church member?  No of course you haven’t, because no such rows exist.  It’s the church’s views on homosexuality that have hit the headlines yet again.  Of all the issues in all the world, why does the church return time and again to the gay question?

This whole issue of where the church stands on gay people (and quite a lot of people would LIKE to stand on them, it seems), has been brought back to the headlines this time by Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

Even by the frequently intemperate standards of the church gay debate, his comments on the issue of gay marriage were extreme.  He used the word “grotesque”, and he drew a bizarre parallel between gay marriage and slavery.  (Note the key difference, mate:  Slaves didn’t have a choice.)

The cardinal defended his position, saying all he was doing was passing on 2,000 years of Christian teaching.    Well let’s unpick that a bit.

Jesus is not on record as saying anything about homosexuals, which doesn’t mean he didn’t say anything, or that he approved. But it certainly means he didn’t bang on about it – as he did about love, poverty, religion and the Kingdom of God.

Even St Paul – who had what most of us would consider dodgy views on slavery, women and hats,  is, I believe, constantly misquoted on the matter.  Yes, he lists homosexuality among society’s misdeeds, along with envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, and many more.  He says all this is what God has “given people over to”, as a consequence of society-wide rejection of God.  And his conclusion: you can’t judge anyone on the above list because we’re all guilty of something on it.  This is how he puts it:  “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass  judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”

It couldn’t be clearer that St Paul is not building a platform from which anyone can condemn the gay.  I think the anti-gay lobby are so excited by the apparent vindication of their position in Romans Chapter 1 that they never get as far as the point he’s actually trying to make in Romans Chapter 2:  Basically:  We’re all as bad as each other. Or to quote Philip Yancey’s glorious gospel in seven words: “We’re all bastards but God loves us.”

So Jesus: unquoted on the issue.  St Paul: misquoted on the issue.  That leaves the Old Testament laws.  Well yes, they come down unequivocally against homosexuality, but also make many other provisions which today would be seen as outrageous, everything from punitive treatment of some rape victims to not eating shellfish and rabbit.   They’re simply not rules by which Christians live their lives, including those who claim to follow every letter of the Bible.

The question as to whether God has an issue with homosexuality is, of course, still key.  None of us can come to God with uncrossable red lines:  if we sense for ourselves that any relationship, gay or straight, is unhelpful, wrong or not condoned by God, it’s up to us to deal with that.   I know gay Christians who struggle to know and do the right thing, some of them essentially conformist people who agonise over the non-conformist position they find themselves in.  Knowing the “rightness” of any relationship can be a challenge for Christians, and is the stuff of wrestling with conscience and listening to God.

So gay people in the Church may be in a different position from gay people not in the church: by surrendering their lives to God they have declared that nothing in their lives is off-limits to Him, that nothing is immune from potential change and challenge by Him – and that includes their relationships.  This is true for all Christians, not just gay ones.

The cardinal behind this recent set of comments happens to be Roman Catholic – the most senior one in Britain at that – but his views seem to run through much of the established church.  The African Anglican church appears particularly anti-gay, and the Anglican church seems to teeter constantly on the point of actually splitting on the issue.

I wonder if part of the problem is that the church attracts a lot of people who want moral certainties, simple answers to life’s complex questions.  Some of them turn into what I call the Taliban Tendency in the church.  They manifest themselves as people who broadly believe life was better in the 1950s – the Gospel of the Good Old Days, when men were men and women were chased (I know, sorry, couldn’t resist it).  Some may also read the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph, and to quote someone else’s hilarious article, were last truly happy on D-Day.

The problem is that there aren’t always simple answers to life’s simple questions, much less to the complex ones.   Life is not black and white.  If you try to tell that to the hardliners, they accuse you of being grey and wishy-washy and (*throw hands up in horror*) liberal.   But the opposite of black and white is not grey, it’s the colours of the rainbow.

The Christian faith answers some key theological questions very simply: Is there a God: Yes. Does he love me: Yes.  What does he want from me: To believe in and follow Jesus Christ, his son; to receive his Holy Spirit.  But away from the core, the questions and answers get far more complex. Even the question beloved of evangelicals  – What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) throws up the basic problem that he always did something different. Sometimes he healed by touch, sometimes from afar. Sometimes he spat into the mud and rubbed people’s eyes, other times he just announced their healing to them.   Sometimes he overturned furniture, other times he made it.   What Jesus unfailingly did do was ask God the Father.   The answer he got was never the same twice.  That surely is the lesson for us.  No formulae, no patterns, no predictability. Instead, a constant dialogue, a constant openness to the Spirit of God – and who knows what might happen.

I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons many clerics love to reject homosexuality is the safe knowledge that they’ve never been there, never done that, never got the T-shirt.  To preach against the other people on St Paul’s list – the proud, the gossiping, the greedy, the arrogant, the insolent, and so on – might just be to reject themselves.   Incidentally I know one or two clergymen whom I suspect reject homosexuality vocally at every opportunity because of their own secret struggle with exactly that issue.  Some gay people, especially from older generations, lived lives in which they were unable to be true to themselves and have simply never dared to believe God would love them just as much if they were gay.

I also take the point that you can question gay marriage even if you have no issue with civil partnership or homosexuality in general.  Whether marriage is a uniquely heterosexual experience is, I suppose, a moral as well as a semantic argument.  But I suspect that many of those opposed to gay marriage are fundamentally the same people who are opposed to gayness in the first place.  And if we are going to have the debate, let’s have it in a gracious and compassionate manner befitting people who say they follow Christ, not the jaw-droppingly horrid language used by the cardinal and other clerics.

The Christian Church should be simply this: a collection of people who have become convinced that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, crucified and resurrected.  Its message should be love.

By its constant focus on gay marriage and gayness in general, it risks alienating not just the gay community, but many other “right-thinking members of society generally”.  The other essence of Christianity is this: we’re all individually accountable before God for the decisions we take and the lives we lead.  Let’s get our own lives right with God and end this obsession with what others are up to.

Run and overcome

Running is an excellent way of replacing one type of pain with another.  I can vouch for this, having tested the theory this week.

I guess we all have days when the spinning plates all hit the ground together.   Suddenly you’re standing there surrounded by bits of crockery and empty poles.

Well that was me a week ago, off piste and off browned.   The only helpful  thought left in my addled head was the phrase Solvitur Ambulando – a Latin phrase roughly meaning “solve it with a walk”  – from  a wonderful blog entry that I’d read a few weeks earlier.

Except that rather than solving it with a walk, I decided to solve it with a run.  Solvitur Corsando? (Latin scholars please correct me!)

The trusty muddy running shoes were donned, banana and water bottle grabbed, and it was off to my favourite South Downs car park.

A two-hour run later, the hips, legs, lungs – pretty much everything hurt.  But the stress, ah the stress was gone.   The perfect storm of stress had given way to the perfect calm of stillness and endorphins.

Conditions were absolutely gorgeous:  warm sunshine, a light breeze, grass underfoot for much of the way, undulating terrain rather than killer hills.  It’s a kindly ridge.  Away to the right the English Channel stretches to the misty horizon, on the left is the flatness of the Weald.

Sunglasses on, earphones in, music playing:  you create your own mini-world in which all the things that were bugging you fall away.   You find the rhythm of running.  The whole of life is distilled into the next few paces.  The wider world with all its unresolved issues fades and vanishes.

In this mode, you pass families, dogs, horses, mountain bikers but barely notice them. Normally I’d stop at the dewponds to check out the bird life, spot ravens, listen for larks.  On this day, I just kept jogging, head down, slow and steady, slow and steady.

For years it’s been an ambition to run from my starting point – Jack and Jill windmills, to Blackcap, a wooded hill around five miles to the east.  Every time I’ve been thwarted – by falls, lack of fitness, once by a reckless mountain biker who came crashing off and sliced his knee so deeply you could see the bone underneath.

This time, my slow steady plod carried me all the way there.  The exhilaration is hard to describe, but it was all the greater for the anguish which had preceded my run.   Perspective regained, spirit soaring, life-saving sense of humour returning, I struck out for the return leg in immeasurably better shape.

Coming back:  well yes, it was a lot harder and a lot slower.  The sun was setting, the legs were tiring, the hips were hurting, the temperature was dropping.  I was running into the wind.  Nothing like sheer panic to keep you going.  I got back to the car at dusk, two hours and nine miles of running later.  I’d had time to think, to pray, to forgive and basically to calm down, dear.

Quite apart from the immediate benefits, there was the joy of running further than ever before.  My previous longest run – years ago on a snowy day in Southwold –  lasted 1hr 20, but recent runs had been only around 30 minutes long.  Going from half an hour to two hours in a single step is daft I know, and the next day I paid for it with sore hips.   I’ve now looked up programmes on how to build up speed and distance more sensibly and work has already started on dogleg training.

But for now, to subvert another Latin phrase, “Lente, Lente, currite noctis equi”, I’ll take the first three words only, thank you very much.

Slowly, slowly, run.