June 09 The Dean GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
"Society has lost sight of the stories that have shaped its life and values."
We recognise what people mean when they say this. In a rapidly moving, religiously diverse and multi-cultural society, stories contribute to a sense of identity for people who can be unsure who they are or where they belong. As people of faith, we feel the loss all the more keenly because religion has had an important part in shaping and telling these stories. Roy Strong's recent paperback A Little History of the English Country Church gives some wonderful illustrations of the way this storytelling took place.
Today, despite the sterling work done by many of our church schools, many young people do not know even the most memorable of the bible stories. They are often unable to recount the outline of the life of Jesus as the gospels record it. Still less do they know the highlights of God's mighty acts in and through his people down the centuries. Others, later in life, seem to depend on half-memories from childhood and somehow expect them to answer life's questions and problems.
The experience of Brian Keenan, who was held hostage in Beirut between 1986 and 1990 is illuminating. In his remarkable book An Evil Cradling Keenan tells of his experience with his fellow hostage John McCarthy. In their captivity they were confronted with a reality they had to call God - though this reality was far bigger and far more caring than the stories they remembered and the pictures they had in their minds.
"At times (during our captivity) God had seemed so real and so intimately close. We talked not of a God in the Christian tradition but some force more primitive, more immediate and more vital, a presence rather than a set of beliefs." His words suggest to me that Keenan had thought of "God" as remote and detached. Perhaps such a God could be coolly acknowledged for an hour or so on Sundays, but it did not trouble anyone (nor could it sustain them) at other times. Failing to tell God's story well, or talking about God carelessly, proves to be a dangerous thing.
So we are challenged to ever greater efforts to proclaim the message and tell the story we know to be life-changing and life-enhancing. Perhaps every generation is challenged in this way. I was struck by these words from more than 50 yeas ago in a short essay by Dorothy Sayers entitled "The Greatest Drama Ever Staged". She sets out to show that the Christian story is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of humankind.
"We may call (the Christian story) exhilarating or we may call it devastating; we may call it revelation or we may call it rubbish; but if we call it dull then words have no meaning at all. ... Any journalist, hearing of it for the first time would recognise it as News; those who did hear it for the first time actually called it News, and good news at that; though we are apt to forget that the word Gospel meant anything so sensational."
And if you're visiting the Cathedral this summer, take a look at the new interpretation panels and the model which try to tell something of the story of the Cathedral, the Priory, the faith to which they bear witness and our mission today. My hope is that the Cathedral will always be a "must see location - with a story to tell."
Mark Boyling, Dean of Carlisle
