Hassle-free sperm donation?

“A growing number of young women in Britain have lost patience with the dating game and are turning to sperm donors to start one-parent families,” reads a story in yesterday’s Sunday Times that is quickly spreading across Internet news sites. The article went on to say that dozens of women in their early 20s – including graduates, nurses and bank workers – have posted appeals on Internet sites citing impatience and frustration with relationships for their decision to take the step into parenthood alone.

I’m not sure how seriously to take this piece. Let others examine the issues and the veracity of the evidence. The only point I want to make is that the story is believable. Most people, I think, would admit the possibility that a significant number of young women may have given up on personal relationships to achieve the motherhood they desire. The idea seems to fit with social changes of which we are all aware. Britain is becoming a nation of ‘aloners’: more people are living alone; lots of organisations have falling memberships; the ubiquitous use of earphones makes casual conversation impossible; knowing your neighbours seems more difficult that previously; and individual choice is the ideological ideals in most areas of life. We don’t seem as able to connect with one another (no pun intended!) as readily as we formerly did. Yes it’s all too easy to imagine that some young women have decided inter-personal relationships aren’t worth the hassle.

And yet at the same time our ‘alone world’ is more connected than it has ever been. All those mobile phone calls can’t be to automated digital services! As is constantly said, the digital revolution opens to all those connected opportunities to communicate beyond the wildest expectations of our forebears. At one and the same time we are more connected and but also more alone. Whether it’s actually true or not, that appears to be a widely held perception of our social world: too many possible relationships, too few real ones.

For a faith with communion at its heart the issues are pressing ones. Christians have to turn communication—real, attempted or idealized—into communion. And that turning is now more difficult than it’s ever been, perceptually and actually. And yet I take some encouragement from that very difficulty. Connecting is troublesome in every area of life; it isn’t a problem unique to the mission efforts of Christianity. The decline in church participation is part of a wider social phenomenon. Creating social communion is counter-culture—literally. Creating intentional communities where communion can flourish is our aim. Such communities are signs of better things for everyone—an antidote to ‘inter-personal relationships aren’t worth the hassle.’

Clint Eastwood and learning to notice

Films are a great distraction. And I mean than in the most positive of ways. Nothing draws my attention quite like a good film. The big screen, even if mediated through a large TV, totally engages my thoughts, my emotions and my senses. Films are a great way 'taking your mind off things.' A chance to escape into another world. An ideal way to relax when your mind has been full of complex or troublesome thoughts.

There are some film stars whose films I know I can rely on to achieve that welcome break. One such is Clint Eastwood. I know he will provide a strong narrative, powerful characterisation, and action - often plenty of action! Real entertainment, but I can't remember ever having quoted a Clint Eastwood film in a sermon. I have just taken them at face value - a fun way to pass a couple of hours.


Book cover copyright Eerdmans

Then through my letterbox today came the cover in the picture and a blurb from a publisher seeking a review. I'm told that in the book the theologian Sara Anson Vaux traces the development of Eastwood's unfolding moral vision. That's a new one on me. I've simply never thought of seriously examining the star's films in this way, but why not?

On reflection I realise that they deal with some hefty themes: justice, confession, obsession, war and peace, gender, achievement, individualism, nobility, and the search for perfectability - to cite but a few. My consideration of those things has been obscured by the dominant idea of entertaining escapism is my viewing of Eastwood's films. I should have taken them more seriously - though no less entertainly! Vaux's book will be published here in November; I look forward to learning much from what she has to say.

In the meantime I need to take to heart again the preacher's task of working with people so that they can notice things that otherwise go unnoticed. Too often preaching is a restatement of the all too obvious, instead of the surprising disclosure of God it's meant to be. Revealing hidden depths and and signalling otherwise overlooked grace are crucial parts of what it's about. Thinking about Clint in a new way calls me back to something I too easily forget.

Bodily remembering

Somebody said to me the other day that people carrying billboard advertisements is a thing of the past. Perhaps the speaker was right and maybe the minimum wage has something to do with the demise of such living adverts. Or is it that they've been replaced by the designer packaging and giveaway bags that we the customers now carry for free! I know someone who always refuses wrapping and free bags precisely because he refuses to be a free advertisement. The unprinted brown carrier-bag also seems to be a thing of the past. I was musing on these things when a friend showed me this:

Anyone wearing short shorts who sits on these particular benches in Auckland, New Zealand walks on with an ad for a store called Superette's sale of short shorts imprinted on their legs - at least temporarily.

Saint Paul said we carry everywhere in our person the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may also be manifested in us. I'm tempted to change that 'in our person' to 'in and on our person'. Isn't he suggesting that we should be ourselves 'adverts' for Christ. I appreciate Paul couldn't have had in his mind the techniques of modern marketting, nevertheless surely he meant us to show Christ in all kinds of ways. Sharing the Christian memory requires making it obvious that we are holding something worth sharing. It isn't meant to be all 'inside,' only a matter of subjective ideas, values and feelings. It's also about what other people can see us carrying.

Collective memory mechanism:

Bodily things are important. Shared objects, actions, and places keep the memory living.