The basic position seems to be ‘we won, get over it’. That might be ok for unimportant issues, or where a choice is easily reversed if it proves wrong. For anything really important or enduring it is totally inadequate. No marriage is going to survive such a winner takes all approach and nor will any nation.

As Jesus noted, no house divided against itself will stand. Democracy should reflect the thoughts and wishes of all its citizens, but that’s only the beginning. The harder next stage, is to work out what we, as a nation, can do with that knowledge – how do we apply it to progress as one nation. Democracy has always had to find ways of looking after its minorities. Otherwise it becomes simply the tyranny of the majority. When it is deeply and evenly divided this principle is all the more important.

The winner takes all approach rightly criticises merely repeating votes until a desired result is achieved. It’s a pointless approach that does nothing to solve underlying disagreements. What is needed is a proper national conversation that seeks a deeper mutual understanding and consensus. That would be real democracy.

It is arguable that what we like to call Democracy is not fit for purpose; certainly not for such a purpose. Winning only works when there is sufficient Agreeing in the general population, otherwise it cannot legitimately call itself Democracy.

Where do we go from here? I am not sure the way forward is at all obvious (or, perhaps, even possible). Something like a National Conversation seems to be required. We have all the tools in modern communication to enable this, though at the moment they are generally working in the opposite direction. As part (in theory at least) of one organisation that is also failing in this task – the Church – I am not occupying any high ground; just trying to say what I see.

1. It has become part of a blame culture; when anything bad happens it is assumed that someone (more likely someone than something) is responsible.
2. It has become part of a victim culture; when anything bad happens it is assumed that someone else is responsible. Therefore I can remain innocent; a victim.
3. As a result it has been associated with guilt.
4. Even where an action is not necessarily bad, responsibility has come to feel like a burden. Where some action is required responsibility to accomplish it has become something we would rather place upon someone else.

And yet, perhaps there is another way of using this word; a way that is not weighed down with blame, victimhood, guilt, or burden.

Response-Ability

If you break the word up into its two constituent parts, it becomes Response-Ability … the ability to respond.

Looked at like this it speaks of a different reality, and it becomes; freedom, rather than burden; empowerment, rather than, victimhood; and future orientated possibility, rather than backward looking blame & guilt.

It looks at reality – which is often full of difficult events and circumstances – and rather than asking the question ‘why?’, it asks ‘What?’; what should I do? It reveals the reality that, whatever the circumstances, every one of us has the ability to respond. Every one of us does respond – that’s one of the definitions of Life, that we respond to the changing stimuli of the world. But as human beings we have a gift that is not so evident on other forms of life; we have far more control over the way we respond – we can chose.

However constrained our life we have the ability to respond in a way we can chose. Even if we are physically constrained, we have control over our emotional and  thinking response. That does not mean that our response-ability can always make the situation better, but the wrong response can always make it worse. So, responsibility is a precious freedom.

What would our life be like if we reclaimed responsibility in this way?

There has been a growth in the last half century of Human Rights as the fundamental rule-book for governing the way we organise and relate socially, especially regarding minorities or those who are more vulnerable. But this has not been without questioning; It has produced some odd outcomes and often seems only to emphasise the competition and opposition of different human rights or the rights of different groups.

The first push back against this way of thinking has probably been to look to the other end of the spectrum and think about human Responsibilities. It does seem to answer some objections; it suggests a less self-centred and more communal and other orientated ethic; and it seems more empowering of people, making them active agents rather than passive recipients or potential victims.

However, Responsibility also has problems; not least in defining what such responsibilities are. And, it has the danger of putting the weight of decision and action on one side. This could, itself, disempower others – if you take up the mantle of responsibility where does that leave those you may feel responsible for?

There is perhaps a third way of looking at this; a recognition that each person is a human being in their own right – so that their principal right is to be treated as such, and their principal responsibilities are to act as such and treat others similarly. It is what is recognised (at least in part in the caring professions as Dignity.

Another way of expressing this would be in the second great commandment ‘love one another as yourself‘

It does not give easy answers that can be codified in legal detail, as the idea of Human Rights does. It does not privatise the answers in the way that Human Responsibility does. It require dialogue, conversation and negotiation. It require really listening to one another and recognising the competing viewpoints of different people and the need to seek for something that can be construed as the common good – a tempered ‘common good’ that listens to individuals.

Perhaps, in the end, all three are required:

• Dignity – to recognise the common and equal humanity of each person
• Rights – to be treated with Dignity
• Responsibility – to treat others with Dignity and to live that Dignity in yourself.

It’s only a starting point, but the alternatives are shortcuts and lose much of what they purport to be seeking.

It is hard to divine these core elements. As the Bible says, the heart is deceitful and hard to discern (Jer 17.9). Nevertheless, a few things stand out:

Truth

Truth – Truth or Reality (to me they are synonymous). But, perhaps this goes beyond mere Truth, and acknowledges (or looks for) a greater reality that has some uniting sense of truth or meaning.

Love

Love – Love is hard to define, but for me, Truth needs something more to make it of any value. Love reaches out to another. It acknowledges value in the other. It seeks the Truth that sets Us free, and brings life in togetherness.

Spirit

Spirit – Spirit and Spirituality is even harder to define than Love. But, Truth and Love seem to need something else to bring them together; something living that unites and empowers us to be. Just as God breathed on the first human and they became a living being.

I remember, when I started in banking, how much good judgement seemed to matter (e.g. in assessing lending requests). I wanted to have such ‘good judgement’, but of course, it is not something that you can learn from books. My academic path was not all plain sailing, but I seemed able to study and pass exams. This was different.

There is no substitute to perseverance and time, and – regrettably, to failure and/or suffering. Like a pilgrimage, judgement, wisdom (or whatever you want to call it), is mostly learnt at a walking pace, day by day. That’s not to say that every day is the same; there are times and seasons. Some parts of the journey seem more significant than others. There are stand-out parts to most people’s life, and there are ordinary days.

But, it is not just perseverance. It is, also, paying attention. Why is it that some people will go through challenging times and seemingly learn nothing, some will be scarred and lessened by the, and some will be deeply changed in a positive, growing, way? I am sure the answer is more complicated than this – but I do think that a key part is whether they pay attention to what is happening as a learning experience

There is a text in the Bible (Romans 8.28) that says that God works good in everything he does for us – everything. Sometimes, that’s hard to swallow. But, I do think that it is fundamentally true.

So, day by day, morning by morning – with attention, thought, and a good heart; we may find our ears are opened to hear and learn … and we may even become able to comfort others with the comfort that we have received … words to sustain the weary.

The road to such speech, it seems, is not  through expressing opinions, or through learning facts, but through a daily attention to life, and the reality that under-girds it (as one who learns first for themselves). It is an apprenticeship; a listening and practical learning. And it bears the cost of seeking such truth and the truth it finds – too many people seek truth more as a weapon to wield, when it is like a sword that pierces your own soul. Jesus said “the Truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32), but often it is hard to receive and it’s freedom is never experienced. I think that the only speech truly worth seeking is one that is able to share truth in love (Eph 4.15) – even if that means that the speaker has to share the painful costs of that truth.

That’s why this Blog and all I am trying to do hangs under the title ‘Isaiah504’. It is not a prophetic calling that seeks to simply proclaim truth that others must accepts – thus says the Lord. Rather, if it is in any sense prophetic, it is more like Ezekiel who was made to embody and act out what he heard from God. But even that seems beyond me. So this is a humble aspiration to seek the way that Isaiah 50.4ff speaks off.

In all this, my listening is aimed at the one who I have come to know as God, as he has revealed himself in the Bible and more perfectly in his incarnation as Jesus and mediated by his presence with us in the Holy Spirit.

That may putt off some who do not share this experience or belief (and may be deeply antagonistic to it). However, to the extent that we may all accept that there is a greater shared reality than we may comprehend, something real that transcends our limited perception and knowledge, but which we may feel our way towards; I hope that what I express may have a relevance and interest beyond the Christian community. If it does not, then it’s not in tune with Isaiah504.

And, then, the more I write, the more it seems beyond me. Perhaps it’s enough to say that I am just sharing thoughts: Just a thought – maybe that’s a less pretentious way of expressing it.

First, I suppose, I write to think… As Socrates is supposed to have said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. Humans are meaning making beings, and even if the universe is absolutely arbitrary, no one has yet found a way of living without meaning. Humans are also social beings and meaning (and the thinking that underlies it) seems essential for any sustainably social living. So, we need to think, and certainly I feel that I need to think.

Writing as a Conversation

But, thinking is much harder just in my head, writing seems to help getting the thoughts in order and, sometimes, discovering what they are. I am very conscious that I don’t know things well enough – what I don’t know is probably more important than what I think that I do know. So, thinking requires engaging with the ‘other’; it involves conversation – and writing is for me the minimal form of conversation, as I converse with the words that I write. I have often thought of this as ‘thinking with my mouth open’, or thinking aloud.

As a Christian, I see this also (at least potentially) as a conversation with God, but even then I recognise the need for something more. In my experience, God often uses other people in this conversation. Whether you share my belief in God, or not, therefore, this is a recognition of the need for real conversation with others as I seek to think better.

And there is another level to this conversation, as I recognise that thinking seems to require something beyond the abstract – beyond mere theory. Thinking that makes life worthwhile always seems to need to be embodied. When people teach, it does not seem to be enough to convey facts or theories, people need illustrations (concrete, embodied examples) to really engage with thinking and understand. Historically, mankind’s shared intergenerational thinking has always been expressed mostly in stories.

Which all means that thinking is best done in company with real people and real lived experience; in company with the past and all the wisdom that we have inherited in great literature and history; and in company with the present, with others who are seeking to engage in the search for wisdom today.

I have been writing most of my life, for all the reasons above. As an avid reader and listener to those who are thinking aloud, I have been a passive part of this conversation. Putting my writing in a public Blog offers the opportunity to engage more directly. It’s a start.