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diff --git a/Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst b/Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst deleted file mode 100644 index 05c3d74..0000000 --- a/Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst +++ /dev/null @@ -1,229 +0,0 @@ -We Can Be Heroes or Women of Faith in the Post-Biblical era -=========================================================== - -We all have spent last couple of weeks following this series -of awesome sermons about remarkable people of faith. I first -thought that my task is the hardest one, to find one exceptional -woman among millions of those who followed Jesus Christ in the -post-Biblical times, but when listening to those sermons, it -feels like I am not alone. Each one of us had a different task to -pick one person from large set of candidates. However, I still -believe that my task might be the most difficult one. Not only -I am one of two preachers with the longest time period to pick -from, but also the position of women was quite different during -the ages than the one of men. - -Let’s try to start from this start. I am persuaded that one of the -strongest motivators in our lives is our resistance to pain. We -all have some kind of pain in our life, and our effort to get rid -of that pain may be one of the strongest decisive factors for -us. When the pain reaches sufficient threshold we are willing to -do almost anything to get rid of it, without regards whether what -we are doing is right, Christian, or even legal in many times. We -know how many alcoholics, drug abusers, and even adulterers -claimed that they what they were doing fully knowing it is wrong, -but the pain they were trying to drown out was so strong, they -give in. As Richard Rohr, a famous Franciscan spiritual leader, -once said, “if we don’t transform [our pain], we will transmit -it.” - -There are many different types of pain we can encounter in our -lives, but I would like today only about one of them. Feeling of -powerlessness. That feeling when we are facing ours or even more -somebody else pain, and we cannot do anything about it, can lead -many to serious depression, which we could try to oppose by going -into some completely irrational and ungodly places. - - | Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat - | something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that - | you know nothing about.” So the disciples began to say to - | one another, “No one brought him anything to eat, did - | they?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of - | the one who sent me and to complete his work. …” - | - | (John 4:31-34) - -There is only one antidote against this feeling of hopelessness, -because of course it is always about the lack of hope in the -end, and that is to do something. Think for example about the -current war in Ukraine. For anybody who spent at least a little -bit of time following the current news in the past two years, the -impression is so strong, that it can completely crush our -life. If we know somebody who has some significant links to -the war, and we have some people like this in this church, the -feeling is even stronger. - -For somebody the pressure is so high, they gave up their life -and went to volunteer to Ukrainian army. I know about many Czech -volunteers who are participating in some kind of charitable -organizations which are helping people affected by the war in -various ways. And of course, there are also many funds collecting -many for supporting good work to those who suffer. Anybody has an -opportunity to do something, and for your sanity, if this touches -you, I would strongly suggest to do it. - -For centuries, for millennia, women never had even an opportunity -to behave to do much, and they had to develop their own strategy -how to deal with the pain of the world as they see it (and many -men, often the most successful ones, learned that lesson as -well). - ----- - -Which finally leads to one obscure woman I would like to talk -about. Her name was Hannah More and she was living in the end of -the eighteenth and the beginning of nineteenth century in England -(specifically in Clapham). Move your mind to those times, think -about novels by Jane Austen, and that for most women there was no -chance how to achieve independently almost anything. Hannah More -has one advantage above her sisters. She was engaged as was -expected, but her betrothed was postponing the wedding for so -long time (in the end more than five years) that in the end he -decided to break the engagement and he got married to somebody -else. I am not sure whether it was a legal requirement or just -him being a decent man, given that after five years of waiting -Miss More was almost ineligible to get another husband, he -promised to her and paid an annual rent for the rest of her life, -which allowed her to life a decent independent life. She never -married, but used her life for changing her life. - -She became one of the founding members of what is now called -The Clapham Sect, group of faithful Christians, members of the -Church of England, who were guided by their faith to change the -society according to their faith. Some of her opinions and goals -are now hard to accept, times changed a lot, but she certainly -achieved a lot. Her biggest personal achievement was founding -of the first systematic school system for girls, she produced -hundreds of pamphlets for education of literate poor, and one of -her less direct achievements that she organized a group of people -supporting William Wilberforce and persuaded him to pick up the -cause of the abolition of slavery. - -When looking at her life there are couple of differences which I -think can illustrate what I think is the main lesson we can learn -for our life of everyday heroes. - -Get power v. love and help -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - -This is the basic difference in the life situations of man and -woman in history. Well, actually, it is not only about women, -because of course most of men in the past and mostly everybody -today are not in the situation where they could leave everything -and start changing the world. - -Still the primary of our society, even when we are not -considering violent solutions, is to achieve some amount of -power, and then use it for changing the world. One of two -video-clips I hoped to run during this sermon, but then I decided -to cut them because they were too long, was from the first part -of the Lord of the Rings, where Boromir asks to take the evil -ring of the Dark Lord Sauron to defend his country against the -same evil. I am not saying that all politics is always evil, we -need more Christians and other people of good will in politics to -get out of the marasm we currently find ourselves, but it worries -me how much we rely on this one way how to change things, and how -complicated and dangerous it is. - -I am thinking about a Christian non-profit organization which -used to work among young girls who were pregnant. They were -organizing adoptions and care for pregnant girls trying to -persuade them not to go with abortion. They used to have -thos posters “Are you in a bad situation? We will help!” -everywhere. Even though they were expressly Christian and -opposing the mainstream attitude towards pregnancy and sexuality, -they were quite respected and I believe they actually helped many -girls in difficult situation. - -I don’t know what happened, perhaps they considered their -previous work too small, or something, but they changed their -complete strategy, turned towards politics, and the results -are in my opinion complete disaster. Head of the organization -made couple of some rather unfortunate statements, some of them -sound quite homophobic, they started publish position papers, -which were including some unverifiable statements and some really -bad statistics and bad science. Once respectable organization is -now a joke, and many people I asked about them told me that it is -just another proove that “those Christians” are only after power -and money. Jews have term “Chillul hashem” (desecrating the name -of the God), which I am afraid applies here. - -Take over v. Link, encourage -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - -Masculine tendency is to conquer, take over, defeat enemies. -Another video I wanted to show was from a good Christian film -“Amazing Grace” from 2006 about William Wilberforce, and how -exactly Hannah More helped liberating slaves of the British -Empire. Instead of fighting to get herself to the front, she -linked together people who might be interested, and introduced -them to William Wilberforce, who as MP then struggled with the -future direction of his life after his conversion to Jesus. Given -her previous experience with publishing books for the wide -population, she helped to publish the autobiography by freed -black slave, “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah -Equiano” (1789), which was the first testimony about the horrible -life of slaves on the British plantations in Caribbean and which -helped to turn the public opinion about the slavery in Britain. -Till this day she is known for her other endeavours and her role -in the abolition of slavery is usually mostly ignored. - -Is it more important to help or to be famous? - - -Radical change and destruction v. Improving / do what’s possible -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - -I didn’t want to get much into details about Miss More’s efforts, -because some of them are now rather controversial. For example, -education of girls was in her time so controversial idea, that -for some time she was teaching just reading, not writing. We are -in time of the French Revolution, and under the influence of -Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France”, she -decided to oppose the influence of the revolutionary propaganda -by publishing hundreds of short stories for poor literate -Englishmen (and Englishwomen, if she already managed to teach -them reading) how they should be content with their life. Most of -these books are now mostly ridiculous, but they illustrate her -deep distrust to anything radical and revolutionary, even though -many considered her to be revolutionary. - -It relates to me with another tendency which I could see on many -people who actually changed for better, and that is relentless -focus on their goal and willing to let go everything else. One of -the reasons why Martin Luther in changing the world was exactly -this keeping focus on changing the Church and letting everything -else to go. Many people then and later were angry with him for -not opposing and perhaps even encouraging bloody suppression -of the German Peasants’ War by the German nobility. Looking -from the other side, it was the only possible way how to keep -establishment supporting changes in the Church, and that was the -one thing he felt to be called to. - ------ - -To summarize, what are the lessons we can bring from observing -life of our today’s heroine, Miss Hannah Moore? - -1. One thing I don’t know about Miss Moore is her prayer life, - but of course, when talking about looking at the needs in the - current society, a prayer is the first thing which should be - on our minds. If our food is to do the will of the one who - sent us, we should better be certain that he actually send us - to resolve the issue we see, and that it is not only our - attempt to glorify ourselves or to sooth our conscience. - -2. Do you want to help or do you want to change the world? The - latter quite often end in some kind of disaster. - -3. Is your central focus you helping or are you willing remain - unknown and link together and encourage other people who may - in the end be famous for something you started? - -4. Are you focused on your thing and you are willing to let other - things go if they jeopardise your thing? - -5. Are you persuaded that “small work” (“práce drobná”, the - phrase of the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue - Masaryk) is more fruitful and blessed than revolution and - destruction? |