THE RESCUE OF HALLELUJAH FROM RELIGION

Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon, has declared the overused word hallelujah rescued from being "just a religious word" by poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen who died on November 7. 

Discussing the legendary hit song on a BBC documentary, the bishop said, "We're broken human beings all of us, so stop pretending. We can all use hallelujah because it comes from being open and transparent before God and the world while saying 'This is how it is mate' "

In death Cohen's timing was impeccable.  He couldn’t have wished for a better week in which to have an inevitable global focus on a powerful body of work – poetry and song – that stretched from the early 60s to a week in which....  

Donald Trump defied the pundits to become ‘President Elect’. 

Hillary Clinton supporters wept and demonstrated.

South Africa's Jacob Zuma survived yet another 'No Confidence Vote' as our young people marched for free higher education. 'Corruption' and 'State Capture' loomed large.    

Planet Turmoil

In short, my world was in turmoil.  My spirituality was in tatters. I was angry and disappointed. 

My solace came  as tributes poured in for the 82-year-old poet, composer and singer, I was reminded of how his hit song Hallelujah had impacted on my spiritual journey, particularly as I began my middle-aged venture into Anglicanism and priesthood.

West Wing and Shrek

Even if you are not a Cohen fan chances are you have heard the song, albeit on the popular West Wing series, watching Shrek with your kids or perhaps sung by the likes of Bob Dylan, Bon Jovi or Bono, who declared it “the best song in the world”.

Here's a short version of the lyrics:

Now I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this

The fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her

She tied you

To a kitchen chair

She broke your throne, and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain

I don't even know the name

But if I did, well really, what's it to you?

There's a blaze of light

In every word

It doesn't matter which you heard

The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you

And even though

It all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

The perfect and the broken

Incidentally, the song is broadcast at 2am every Saturday by the Israeli Defence Force's radio channel and Cohen once said of the song's meaning: "It explains that many kinds of hallelujahs do exist, and all the perfect and broken hallelujahs have equal value."

Not a born and bred Anglican, I don’t hum hymns under my breath when washing the dishes and Cohen’s Hallelujah was the only ‘hymn’ in my arsenal when I knocked at the Church’s door. 

It would carry me through my questioning of why the Almighty needed praise. And it's interesting to note how often Cohen’s ‘psalm’ has been the focus of sermons within Judaism, Christianity and even Buddhism. (Cohen was a Buddhist monk for a time and re-entered the music world when he felt he had attained sufficient spiritual discipline.)

As Rabbi Michael Sternfield remarked at Chicago Sinai Congregation on the Day of Atonement in 2008, “One of the most overworked words in the Bibles of both Judaism and Christianity is ‘Hallelujah’, which literally means, ‘Praise God’. Even after all these years I still can’t understand why we need to praise God so much. Could God possible be so insecure that God needs to be told how great God is? Or worse, do we really believe that God is susceptible to flattery?”

Interestingly in the Jewish faith Hallelujah is a commandment to praise. In the Christian tradition, it is a word of praise.

The rabbi added that the more he listened to Cohen’s Hallelujah, “I have come to recognise the struggles many of us go through, especially on a night such as this, when we are expected to praise God but our hearts may not be in it”.

A reluctant song of praise

I agree with Rabbi Michael – Cohen’s Hallelujah is a reluctant song of praise, expressing gratitude in the midst of sorrow (and my political angst) it serves this broken time, our failures and disappointments. Maybe it’s not a song for the young who march in our cities but it resonates with my life experiences.

It also fits well with a rabbinic legend that when Moses descended from the mountain carrying the tablets with God’s Commandments. He was so distraught by how his people had behaved during his absence that he threw the tablets to the ground where they smashed into countless fragments. 

When the people repented of their idolatry new tablets were made. Legend tells us both sets were then placed in the Ark and Rabbi Michael suggests that the Ark of the Covenant is our hearts which hold both the whole and the shattered elements of our lives.

As the rabbi emphasised, “In spite of all the pain and sadness we have known, still life is good, every day is a blessing and therefore we praise and express gratitude to God, even in our darkest hours.”

Birth of the blues

Bono, singer and Christian, once shared that the invocation of David resonated because, “I’ve thought a lot about him. He was a harp player and the first God heckler ….’Why hast thou forsaken me?’ That’s the beginning of the blues.”

Maybe it’s a good time for those of us battered by recent events to do some heckling of our own.

You will find a stack of erudite comments about Hallelujah’s musical composition on Google if you are interested. For me the comfort is in the poetry and Cohen’s assurance: “This world is full of conflicts and things that cannot be reconciled but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by Hallelujah.”

Flowers for Hitler

Perhaps the pollsters who were embarrassed by Donald Trump’s win should reflect on Cohen’s poem Flowers for Hitler. 

I quote: “what is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. thus, new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. if Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.”

As the poet pointed out, what’s the use of decrying the Holocaust, a Trump win or racism, if in our own lives we are cruel to others?  If at our own dinner tables we are guilty of denigrated those who are different from us?

To the end

In October 2016, mere weeks before his death, Cohen released the album You Want It Darker. Severe back issues made it difficult for him to leave home so his son Adam placed a microphone on his dining room table and recorded him on a laptop. The album was met with rave reviews as the 82-year-old lived up to his maxim of never retiring.

Adam says he continued composing to the very end and died with his sense of humour intact.  Earlier, he reportedly said “I am ready to die," and added, "I hope it's not too uncomfortable. That's about it for me."

Typically, when that crisis passed, he confessed to a tendency to exaggerate," "I’ve always been into self-dramatisation, I intend to live forever.”

Despite his Zen leanings the songwriter requested that he be laid to rest "in a traditional Jewish rite beside his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.” 

Maybe it’s a good time for those of us battered by recent events to examine who we are. to shout out “Hallelujah” and to heckle God for the strength to change our world.

Pass the safety pin

One last thought, I’ve decided to subscribe to the ‘Safety Pin movement’.

 Huffington Post reports:

In the wake of Donald Trump's election, many groups in the US, including African Americans, Muslims and women, are feeling scared and uneasy.

Trump, who has said he would ban all Muslims from entering the US, made sexist and insulting comments about women and racist comments about people of color in America, is a frightening prospect for many Americans who believe he is unfit for office.

So, while protests rage on across the country, one movement is using a simple yet powerful symbol to show their support for anyone who is fearful of what is to come.

By fastening a safety pin to their clothing, people are declaring themselves allies to groups who have been maligned by Trump, to show that they stand in solidarity with anyone who might be afraid.

Who knows what Donald Trump will do. Meanwhile, in South Africa the safety pin is fast emerging as a sign of solidarity against racism.

Hallelujah! That works for me.

Just in case you haven't heard Hallelujah or you would like to hear it again, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

POLITICS, SEX AND BRIDGE

I am certain that if one grows up with Gentle Jesus on one shoulder and a cute guardian angel on the other your entry to priesthood would be quite different to mine. God was not an issue in my home so I’m not sure whether my family were agnostic or atheist. Dinner table conversations tended to revolve around politics, economics, topics such as the Kinsey Report on male sexual behaviour and my grandmother’s latest ‘brainless’ bridge bid.



The tone was often heated but never boring.

THE END IS NIGH
Perhaps the reason I’ve remained optimistic about South Africa is that I’ve been hearing predictions about my homeland’s demise ever since I was five years old. As with so many diet fads, it just hasn’t happened.

How clearly I remember my grandfather, who’d just failed to win a United Party seat in parliament, declaring in 1948 that the end was nigh. The Nationalist Party, architects of legislated apartheid, had clocked a landslide win.

My grandmother was more concerned about being raped by black men. This did require a basic sex lesson over breakfast which went largely over my five year old head. But I loved the hat pin she gave me as my very own weapon to carry in my school satchel.

A RELIGIOUS SMORGASBORD
The nuns at the nearest convent had accepted me at ‘big’ school early because I could read and knew my times tables.

They also offered a smorgasbord of Mary, Jesus, God (in that order) and a host of useful saints. It is a credit to my doting family that there were no snorts of derision when I advised my grandmother to consult St Christopher whenever she lost her spectacles.

Ironically it was because I’d been taught by my elders ‘to think’ that  by 14 I was seriously questioning their politics and my own perception of black people. 

My first mentor was a ‘domestic helper’ who used to clean our bathrooms at the convent boarding school I later attended. How patiently she answered my questions about life in the township and her family.

We’d always had ‘help’ in our home but I’d never perceived them as having a life beyond my personal needs.

BEWARE GERMS
Although our domestic helpers (note the plural) lived on our property I was not allowed into their quarters. A while before I started school my mother had shown me a tiny bug in a basin and explained that germs were a thousand times smaller which was why we couldn’t see them. 

And, she added, there were lots in those rooms in the backyard. So I was never to visit them and never to eat off a helper’s plate or take mealie pap out of  a pot. 

 Oh, and it wasn’t a good idea to play touch tongues with the neighbour’s kids either – those damn germs were everywhere!

I wish I could tell you I’ll never forget the name of my first black mentor. I'm not sure if I ever knew it because the friendship ended quite soon. The Irish nun in charge of our boarding section forbade the friendship and the cleaning lady was allocated to another part of the school. As the sister explained, it was ‘a class thing’.

NO COUNTRY CLUB
Not that I had much social clout to spare.

Although my grandfather was a pharmacist, politician and intellectual he’d died when I was about six, having dropped while on a walk along the main Lyndhurst road. 

We had a large property and I still remember a ‘green mamba’, what we used to call the buses for black people, slowly winding its way up our long driveway. The driver had emptied the vehicle of passengers and brought his body to us.

My father inherited the family canvas business but left most of the shares in his mother’s name so that when my mother divorced him there wasn’t a very generous maintenance settlement. 

As a single-parent my mother couldn’t afford private school fees so a convent boarding school was our best option. 

I’m sure many who read this will horrified by the overt racism in this tale. Fact is even if we didn’t have Country Club membership, we whites were privileged beyond sensitivity. Even the  kindest, most religious folk lived in blissful ignorance of the cruelties of apartheid. 

Frankly, my dears, many were of the opinion that the early missionaries hadn’t done much to civilise the locals. 

Religious folk, including our Prime Minister, a pastor, were really clever at quoting the Bible to justify legislated segregation.

Most of us probably knew more about other planets than we did about the nearest township that provided our labour. Incidentally those townships were spatially designed so that if the ‘natives’ became troublesome they could be easily closed off with half a dozen tanks.

I’m not going to take you too deep down that atrocious pit. You may not be able to bear the pain. 

Suffice to say that by the time I matriculated my political genes had kicked in. I was, and still am, aware that sorry doesn’t do the trick.

BYE BYE PARTY POLITICS
As I look back on my priesting I am reminded of the pain of having to disassociate myself from party politics. I cannot tell you what it meant to serve as an observer in our first democratic elections in 1994. The hopes, the dreams, the path towards a rainbow nation. Our beloved Madiba.

Looking back entering the priesthood was much like matriculating. So many years focusing on a particular goal. Then you leave school and the door opens on another chapter in your life. The expectations are invariably unrealistic and reality can be harsh.

However, my years in Soweto were a privilege. 

In 2001 there was such a huge sense of new beginnings and of an emerging middle class. I’m often amused by those who are surprised by the growth of the cell phone industry in this country. 

What did they expect? By far the majority of our population had not been served by Telkom, our state owned telecoms provider. There were very few landlines in Diepkloof but I remember so well my first ‘Baptism class’. Of about 15, mostly young unemployed women, by far the majority owned a cell phone.  

For the first time in their lives my young parishioners were experiencing connectivity!

AN INTEREST TREADMILL
Meanwhile Archbishop Njongo was waging his battle to have third world debt cancelled. Among the many lessons I learned from him is that the debt incurred by emerging nations had already been repaid several times over. 

They were on a hamster wheel fueled by interest. 

More money was pouring into the global north than the other way round! Jongo’s allies included the world renowned economist Prof Jeffrey Sachs. They were both part of the Jubilee 2000 movement, named after the Biblical exhortation to observe a Jubilee year once every fifty years, in which debts would be forgiven. 

As they campaigned for the UN’s Millennium Development goals and cancellation of debt for highly indebted poor countries they were joined by U2 frontman Bono. (It was never boring working for Jongo.)

A FOUNDATION
At yet another level, Jongo had Ted Karpf serving under him as an Episcopal Provincial Canon Missioner. This was on a HIV/Aids project called Isiseko Sokomeleza (Building the Foundation). 

You may remember an earlier blog in which I mentioned how the then President of the United States, Bill Clinton had agreed that Ted should be seconded to Africa.

In 2001 Ted was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop an international development pilot project under an initiative with the 10-million member Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa i.e. Jongo’s domain. (Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and St Helena)  

The project would run for nine years supported by the UK Department for International Development  and the US President's PEPFAR programme. These provided more than USD10 million a year. 

Two years later our ‘Big Gun’, as my son used to call Canon Ted,  was also named HIV/AIDS Coordinator of the world-wide Anglican Communion. He developed faith-based responses and community planning programmes globally. 

Traditionally the SA National Aids Council is chaired by our Deputy State President who at that time was Jacob Zuma. 

It may surprise you that in the midst of the Mbeki denialism and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala’s much derided beetroot campaign he provided Isiseko Sokomeleza with welcome support. 

This included addressing the All African Anglican Conference on HIV/AIDS in 2001.

Zuma lamented that the stigma attached to AIDS had resulted in horrific forms of discrimination and violence including rejection, ridicule and death. He spoke of the many families who had suffered untold pain and discrimination.

Jongo, who opened the conference warned the 130 delegates representing 34 countries, "We have an alarming tendency to be dazzled by statistics and a great need to put a human face to the people who are infected and affected."

It would become his mantra.

FORGET LEVITICUS
Ted was also a gay rights activist with a wonderful son and daughter from a marriage of 13 years. He'd ‘come out’ at age 40 in 1988, reporting that the role models were “few and far” between, but sexual liaisons were not. His partner for 12 years was HIV+ AIDS activist Warren W. Buckingham III.

At that conference I met another gay priest, Jape Heath. HIV positive, he was a founder of INERELA+ an international network of religious leaders, lay and ordained, women and men, living with, or personally affected, by HIV.

Jape with Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Both men would go on to earn global reputations for their work in the HIV/AIDS arena. Both would also underscore the invaluable contribution gay priests can make and why they deserve better from their Church.

Although my lifelong best friend was lesbian, she didn’t move in church circles so I’d never understood the unholy hurt religious lesbian and gay people experience.

In short, I’d discovered another insidious form of discrimination that still runs deep.

My friendship with Ted and Jape would add another dimension to my ministry as I increasingly counselled deeply troubled Christian men and women who had opted for heterosexual marriage in a desperate attempt to deny their sexuality and to please God.

I live in the hope that if we could stop quoting the Scriptures to justify slavery and apartheid this is also possible regarding lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans (LGBT) rights.

DON'T CALL THE ARCHBISHOP DOLL

The day of my interview loomed. 

Would the rector at St James in Diepkloof have me ? Was having a white, middle aged woman ordinand who needed a lot of training in keeping with his plans for the busy parish?

We set a time and he gave me directions. Along the way I took a wrong turn. No problem. Ask a policeman. 'Sure,' he said. 'Follow me.'  Which is exactly what a I did - through several suburbs. 

Sure enough we pulled up at St James but it was a Catholic Church. I explained that I was worried about being late for my important interview. 'Don't worry,' he assured. 'I'll ask another policeman.' 
Soon we were travelling through more suburbs in a convoy of two police vans and my Merc.


It proved to be third time unlucky. But, you've guessed it, we met another policeman and he had the the good sense to call my potential rector for directions. 

By now there was total buy-in to my future in the Anglican Church. I was going to be embarrassingly late so the lead van used its blue emergency lights.  I arrived at St James with three cop cars in attendance feeling like the Queen of England.

It was my first taste of what it would be like to work in Soweto. Those guys really cared.

You may recall that I had permission to only spend six months in the township but I knew there was no way I'd learn enough in that period.  Confession time. I didn't give the rector the bishop's letter which meant he could honestly say he'd never read it.

That afternoon marked the beginning of some of the best years of my life.

Another interview

There was another game changer.  

A friend in my original parish knew that I had counted among my PR clients the government of Lesotho. I'd conducted communications campaigns for two of the Mountain Kingdom's leaders besides various government departments. 

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane had succeeded Desmond Tutu and needed a speech writer and media consultant. My friend recommended me.

This interview was at a classy hotel in one of Joburg's better suburbs. 

When Archbishop Ndungane was installed as archbishop one of our Sunday papers  ran a cartoon in which an extra large mitre (That high pointed headgear bishop's wear) was half way down his face. The implication being that he had a very large one to fill.  

As a huge fan of 'The Arch', as we still call the beloved Tutu, I must admit to wondering if there wasn't a great deal of truth in the cartoon. 

Archbishop Ndungane was very serious, quite shy and went to a lot of trouble explaining how the  Anglican Province of Southern Africa worked. 

While Desmond Tutu's focus had been on apartheid. His successor was deeply involved in a campaign to abolish the debt of developing countries and combating HIV/AIDS. 

He'd spent three years on Robben Island, was big on theological education and had formerly served as Bishop of Kimberly.


At one point in the interview I asked what I should call him. 'Your Grace or Archbishop.' was the reply. 

Now you have to understand that I'd been calling my chief executive clients 'doll' for years. I opted for 'Your Grace'. Initially it didn't roll off my tongue easily but growing respect helped.  

This was no Tutu. He was his own man

A hint to all ordinands, don't call your archbishop doll. It won't advance your career.

Understood by God

I got both jobs but looking back I see yet another God-incidence. 

As mentioned in my previous blog, ordinands sit at the bottom of the clerical pile. It was tough for someone who'd dealt with leaders of countries and major corporates. Archbishop Ndungane drew me into a world that included Bono, Jeffrey Sacks the world renowned economist and even (at arms length) the White House.

Bono

Prof Jeffrey Sacks

Writing speeches for him to make at the White House

                            
There was another great turnaround. 

PR practitioners have to stroke the media to get coverage for clients. I now had journalists clamouring for interviews with the Archbishop on every conceivable subject. 

Mind you, I did turn down a plea by one TV station wanting him to comment on a tagged penguin that had swum from Cape Town to Robben Island.


Indeed, working for Jongo, (which I didn't call him to his face) made my internship much easier.  Largely because I was experiencing Church in action.

I'd given up my HIV/AIDS work at the Joburg General Hospital in order to cope but  the infected and affected would remain part of my ministry. 

I cannot tell you what it meant to write speeches in which the archbishop declared 'We must shout from the roof tops that AIDS is not a sin.'  Or to be with him when the medical staff at a major AIDS research centre gave him a standing ovation.

It was the height of the AIDS pandemic and people were, as they are now, being destroyed by the stigma surrounding the immune deficiency.

A tattered spirituality

There was study, ordinand training, looking after my existing clients, working for the archbishop, serving in a new parish and finishing my house.  God was becoming a pinpoint on a distant horizon. Every now and again I'd collapse in a heap at St Benedict's, my favourite retreat house run by the Sisters of the Order of the Holy Paraclete (OHP). Filled with new resolve I'd emerge and jump straight back on my hamster wheel.

My Spiritual Director suggested that I  become an OHP tertiary. I needed the gentle, sensible, spiritual discipline. A thread to run through my perpetual busy-ness.

She knew that St Benedict, father of western monasticism, would appeal to me. He was the guy who broke ranks with the self-flagellants. Instead he embraced humanism, art and thought. His spirituality is all about balance between prayer, work and play. Hospitality is important. (Thank heavens I didn't have to give up my dinner parties.)

As a tertiary I would develop my own vows and my journey towards priesthood assumed a new rhythm and perspective. I learned to say, 'sorry I can't do that, I'm too busy.'  I knew that if God wanted me to be a priest  I would be one. 

Despite a new prayer discipline  (not too hectic but in place) my work diary worked better.

When I went through my formal discernment conference for priesthood the first question was: 'What will you do if you are rejected today?' 

The answer I once would have given (with downcast eyes) was:  'I'll accept God's will.'  Instead I was able to joke: 'I'll probably have a nervous breakdown.'  

The committee considering my physical well-being asked about my exercise regimen. I assured them that if ever I did feel that energetic, I lay down 'til the feeling passed.   

I hope St Benedict smiled when the conference voted to allow me to be ordained.  I had a permanent grin for at least a week. The ordination to the diaconate was barely two months away and I had an after party to organise. 

By then I'd learned that a genteel tea and cakes was not going to crack the nod in my new parish. Meat was essential. But I did make the awful mistake of trying to pin my darling rector down on how many to cater for. 

He kept avoiding the issue. Silly me. In Soweto you don't send invitations for an ordination party everyone is welcome (the parish roll must have had over a 1000 names). 

I had some serious shopping to do!