--> [written in late 2011 at the time of the Occupy movement's settlement at St Paul's Cathedral]
I've been thinking a lot recently about 'image'
Recent events at St
Paul's Cathedral have been reported in the press in terms of the
image of the Church as a whole being 'tarnished'.
'Image' is a central
concept now in out culture - for politician, celebrities - and even
the Church.
But the task of
projecting a 'good image' is a hard master, a dominating idol. Get it
wrong and you commit public suicide (like the clergy at St Paul's).
Keeping your image
involves for celebrities surgery and botox; for politicians it
involves constant looking in the mirror of polls and newspapers
editorials.
But where in the
securing of 'image' is there space to be human: to be wrinkly, old,
sometimes wrong, eccentric, undecided?
In religious language
there is a word: 'glory'. When I hear it I think of golden halos,
Christmas cards and a warm feeling... But what glory really means in
the Greek of the Bible is 'image' (actually it means 'rumour' - what
people say about someone else).
When Christians and
Jews say that we should not glory in anything or anyone but God -
that should mean that we let go of 'image', that we are to be freed
of its domination.
The chasing of image
makes us less than human, glory is for God alone.
