On Writing: Sermons, Carols and The Choir Invisible

We strive to be better. To develop. To learn. To be 'that better self' as George Elliot would put it. Organised religion doesn't always get it right and when they get it wrong the distrust earned eats away at what is the base good. Love and generosity of spirit and a search for peace, justice and equality.

Having never been in St Paul's Cathedral in all my years living in London, this weekend I went to Morning Choral Matins to see it in use as it should be. The choir sounded as good as a choir should in the high roofed echoes of a cathedral with an organ as accompaniment and at times was so moving a sound that it resonated though your whole body flushing out negativity as it swept though like a spiritual colonic irrigation. Once you turned a deaf ear to the camera clicks, off-key congregation and the hissing from the speakers as the minister spoke, it was as perfect as any Morning Choral Matins. What made it, and came as a great surprise to me, was the sermon. It was relevant, political and not afraid to take a stance on war and peace and justice and equality, as well as slam the Daily Mail (for another one of those surveys of all the people who think something the Daily Mail want them to say they think). The experience was uplifting.

Standing in Canary Wharf carolling for 3 hours had a similarly positive effect. My calves stung, my back grew stiff and my arms burned as the bucket I held got heavier, but it got heavier. People were generous. The Salvation Army Band played. And I had the privilege of smiling and saying 'Thank you' to hundreds of people and in reply to my Christmas greetings was wished a 'Happy Christmas' by hundreds of smiling people in return.

 

George Elliot is one of those 'immortal dead' she writes of 'who live again in minds made better by their prescence' as a writer. How many other of the 'choir invisible' inform our choices, teach us right from wrong and how, not just to love but also how to show that love in generosity of spirit and doing good.

Perhaps when we search for immortality in our writing, humanity would be better served searching for it in the good we do. As George Elliot entreats,  'Oh may I join the choir invisible' :

O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude,
In scorn of miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's minds
To vaster issues
......

May I reach

That purest heaven,—be to other souls

The cup of strength in some great agony,

Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,

Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,

Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,

And in diffusion ever more intense!

So shall I join the choir invisible,

Whose music is the gladness of the world

Morals and Ethics: How to Live Well

'What is a Good Life?' 

...asks Donald Dworkin in the New York Review of Books (Issue February 10, 2011)

I wonder what I am striving for, what I am hoping to achieve in my life or with my life. I have done wrong and made mistakes and know the difference - consciousness. I have no problem admitting to making mistakes and realise with experience how much I have learned from them and how little I need to feel responsible for them as long I do learn.  Doing wrong on the other hand, can have learning but a conscious decision to do wrong is very different. That is where the guilt comes.

What is guilt? Is it derived from my Catholic schooling, my parents influence, my peers or is it 'cognitive dissonance' (Festinger, 1957)? What do I do about it? I either change my belief that I am wrong or about what is wrong so I won't feel guilty. Or I find out information that might exonerate me or provide circumstances in which I might not be wrong. Or I demote the importance of the action of the wrong doing. Or I do the right thing so that my actions are in line with my beliefs. Dworkin (2011) suggests:

 '...it is unlikely that we will ever achieve a full integration of our moral, political, 
and ethical values that feels authentic and right. 
That is why living responsibly is a continuing project and never a completed task. 
But the wider the network of ideas we can explore, 
the further we can push that project.'

Is avoiding guilt or cognitive dissonance a good enough reason to do the right thing? Stosny (2008) advocates using the use of our sense of  'responsibilty' rather than guilt to fuel our actions, because it comes from 'basic compassion, with its inherent motivation to improve, appreciate, connect, or protect'. Dworkin (2011) considers ' we have a responsibility to live well and believe that living well means creating a life that is not simply pleasurable but good in that critical way.'

The consciousness I mentioned earlier which indicates the difference in my mind between making mistakes and 'doing wrong' comes across in Dworkin's (2011) explanation of why we should 'live well' (my emphasis):

We are charged to live well 
by the bare fact of our existence as self-conscious creatures with lives to lead.
 We are charged in the way we are charged by the value of anything entrusted to our care.
It is important that we live well; 
not important just to us or to anyone else, 
but just important.

Much in the same way that Smith (1982) mentioned the importance of 'process' over 'product', Dworkin (2011) considers:

The final value of our lives is adverbial, not adjectival -
a matter of how we actually lived, 
not of a label applied to the final result.

So if I want to know, the 'meaning of life', perhaps I need look no further than Dworkin (2011) when he says:

'We can think of living well as giving meaning - ethical meaning, 
if we want a name - to a life.'

Dworkin, R. (2011) What is a Good Life? The New York Review of Books, Issue February 10
Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Smith, M. (1980, 1982) Creators not Consumers, NAYC Publications /Youth Clubs UK, Second Edition
Stosny, S. (2008) Guilt vs. Responsibility is Powerlessness vs. Power, Understanding emotional pollution and power, Issue May in Anger in the Age of Entitlement, Pschyology Today

One Thing Every Day

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt but said by Mary Schmich, whose speech
features in Baz Luhrmann's video Wear Sunscreen.

 Quote Investigator explains it all

Parkour on the Promenade of Brighton Beach

I don't think its about jumping out of a plane or going swimming with sharks, both of which I have no interest in and not because of the fear, but because I have no interest in them. But should I be testing myself anyway?  Should I be forcing myself to do scary things to take me out of my comfort zone? To what ends? To overcome fear itself? I don't think its possible. The fear for your life and for your child's life is very different. The irrational fear when you are about to go on stage or the rational fear when about to take another higher step on a climbing wall is different. I don't think I can overcome my fears by practising being scared. Or am I practising taking a chance, making that metaphorical leap of faith, that can otherwise hold me back in what I want to achieve? What do I want to achieve and what fear is holding me back?

I tried to think of any fears I had which I could overcome and make my life better. I discounted fears that I could do nothing about or were not the 'do one thing every day' variety. I tried to think of what I was most fearful of lately. What had given me the flutter in my chest and sense of uneasiness because I cared so much about the possibility of it going wrong? I did feel it recently. I realised that that was how I felt the first time I attended a writing class this week.Yes, I was scared. Yes, I did it anyway. Yes, I was glad I did. I will do it again despite being scared because the benefit outweighed the fear. But what if it hadn't? What if it was as bad as I thought it would be and I felt no benefit? Is that what I need to do?

I thought about why I was going to this class. What had made me do something that scared me? What did I want to achieve? I said what I wanted to achieve to the group, almost to keep myself accountable. If I had aimed low there would have been fewer expectations of me but I didn't. I admitted that my ultimate aim in attending the class was to have a book published. I admitted further that I didn't just want my book published but I also wanted it to be on secondary school reading lists!

So what was stopping me? It wasn't the fear of writing. I have written the book. For a while it was the fear of writing a synopsis, but I have written the synopsis. And I've written the covering letter. So all I have to do is send a synopsis and three chapters of my book with a covering letter to agents, and that's where it stops. In a few rare moments of bravado I have sent it out and got rejected, so I didn't again. I know everyone gets rejection letters and even no letters. I know I have to have a tougher skin. I know I should just 'suck it up'. But where's the motivation? 

I was motivated to write. I was motivated to finish the book. I was even motivated to write the letter and synopsis. I felt a sense of achievement in all of those. I thought it likely that I would. However sending it all out to agents hasn't got the same likelihood of success and its something I have no control over. So where's my motivation? When I am more likely to be rejected than accepted why would I do it? That's what fear does. Fear holds you back. Fear puts an impossible wall between you and your possibilities.

So the one thing I am going to do everyday that scares me, because it is the one thing that someday might be of greatest benefit to me, is to submit my book to agents. 

And I will do it every day until I don't have to anymore.

Good is a cool magazine and community I found when I googled the quote.