Bradwell Papers 2

Bradwell Papers 2

Winter 1994

The first edition of this modest theological journal was issued in the Spring of this year and was sent to clergy and lay workers across the Chelmsford Diocese. I'm delighted to report that it seems to have been very well received and this has encouraged me to look to future issues with a degree of confidence and optimism.

Although my funding is very limited, I will endeavour for this second issue to distribute the journal as widely as possible across the whole Diocese rather than to limit it to the Bradwell Area alone, as we perceive that it is proving popular and might be of service on the wider front.

Already I have received more articles than we can manage to include in this issue and I look forward to a continuing stream of contributions for the future.

I am very grateful to those who have contributed to this current edition and I hope you will enjoy reading here a varied collection of articles and poems of a theological inclination. I trust they will encourage you to put pen to paper yourself and share your own theological musings in the next edition of the Bradwell Papers.

With best wishes to all,

+Laurie Bradwell

Contents

London's Gehenna, The Rev'd Jake Loewendahl

Late Vocations, a poem by Andrew J Powney

Jottings from Norfolk, The Rev'd Sylvia Wood

Reflections of an NSM, The Rev'd Don Gordon

Freed for the Future, Debt and the "Underclass", +Laurie Bradwell

Temptations, a poem by Barbara Moss

London's Gehenna

The Rev'd Jake Loewendahl

(Reflections following avisit with the Bishop of Bradwell to the tip at Mucking, an erstwhile village on the edge of the Thames marshes.)

Next time your dustbins are full, waiting for the refuse collectors to come, look at how much stuff your household is throwing away, and smell it. Then multiply your volume of rubbish and its smell by several million, and you might begin to get a picture of the rotting mounds of household waste that make up the 800 acres called Mucking Tip. The boundary of my parish runs through this tip, one of the largest rubbish dumps or landfill sites (as they are now called) in Europe. The household rubbish from 5 central London boroughs is collected together and loaded into large containers. These are brought down the Thames by barge, unloaded by crane at the Tip jetty, and taken one at a time, by lorry, to the current dumping area. There the container doors open automatically, as it is emptied into an enormous crater made by the extraction of ballast. A man closes the door of the container treading through the latest pile of rotting waste. Bulldozers go backwards and forwards over the rubbish, compressing it, so that a greater volume of waste can be crammed into the crater. When full the dumping does not stop, but a hill is created, 40 feet above the level of the marsh. On every working day of the year 280 to 300 of these containers are emptied at the site. The smell and the volume become overwhelming.

At the other end of the tip 150 lorries each day come with 'industrial waste' from the heavy industry along the East Thames corridor. Some of this is in the form of a slurry, some has been 'frozen' into blocks and made inert. Much of it, before treatment, was highly toxic; some of it probably still is when put into the ground.

The steep sided valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna, to the south west of ancient Jerusalem does not, on the face of it, have much in common with the broad marshes of the lower Thames valley. But Hinnom, like the Thames valley, was the place for contemporary heavy industry, and was used as a rubbish dump; Hinnom the dump for Jerusalem, the marshes of the lower Thames as a rubbish dump for London since Roman times. And whilst plague ridden bodies are no longer burnt on the marsh, as they were in Gehenna, farmers still expose the bones of the unwanted dead from London of 100 years ago. When the Bishop of Bradwell and I looked at the Thames valley from the top of one of the loading cranes at Mucking Tip, with its magnificent view down to the sea and across the Kent hills, we may not have seen ourselves as being at the mouth of hell, as Jewish tradition once held the valley of Hinnom to be, but burning, urgent questions came to mind.

Where, if anywhere, is God the creator in all this? We may see something of God in beautiful sunsets (made even more so by our polluted skies); or on mountains, or by the sea, or in the forests, but is there anything of God in the rotting rubbish of Mucking Tip? Where is God the Son, whose coming inaugurates a new creation, (2 Corinthians 5.17)? Are the rubbish dumps signs of the way in which creation continues to be 'bound to decay', or are there signs of hope here? Does the Holy Spirit, 'which gives life to the people of God' speak to us through the dumps, or are they merely barren lands, outside the realms of the Spirit's activity?

In the risky business of creation, there is always waste. Every living organism produces natural waste: the decaying shell of a body, a dead branch, excreta, the massive volume of dust and gas, and lava from an exploding volcano. Much waste is good and necessary. The final product useful to our lives: peat, coal, compost. Adam was told to have dominion over the created order (Genesis 1.26), but since the industrial revolution, our ingenuity in conquering, harnessing, exploiting, and manipulating nature has led to the production of highly damaging products, many of which have a long life (e.g. plastic bottles are mostly used once and last for at least 50 years). The way of dealing with factory and household waste up to now has been primarily a negative one. We do what all cities have done ever since cities began. When the waste cannot be conveniently allowed to flow into a river or the sea, we dump it in the ground, cover it over and the problem appears solved.

Mucking Tip is a sophisticated example of this negative approach. The process is well managed, or so we were led to believe, with the rules governing waste disposal followed to the letter. The pits are lined with clay to prevent leaching. There are screens to catch paper which may fly about. Tests are carried out to ensure that methane does not build up, or that the earth is not contaminated. Clean fresh water pools surround the mounds of waste. The problem is solved and money is made. Money from selling the ballast, money from dumping, and money from the restored land. Man's domestic and industrial waste is dealt with by man in a highly masculine way: ordered, brutal, upfront, unsubtle, quick.

Yet Adam was made in the image of God, 'male and female he created them' (Genesis 1.27), and perhaps a 'feminine' approach to dealing with waste needs to be discovered. One that embraces caring, nurturing, re-creating. Even in the man's world of Mucking Tip (the women are safe in the office, typing and making visitors coffee), glimpses of the feminine are to be found. The 'restored' land is used productively to breed highland cattle (a hobby of one of the managers). The methane gas (a produce of rotting household waste) is harnessed, through a system of pipes, to run an electricity generating plant on the site. This was built at a cost of some £3 million and will continue to function for 15 years after dumping ceases on the site - a creative and money making venture.

But for an innovative approach to waste, we need to look again at our dustbins and what we put in them. Some things can be recycled, but this is limited, by logistics and the market. There is not much point in recycling products by using up more energy in transport and the recycling process than in the production of replacement items. Some things can be used in different ways. Anyone who experienced the war, or was brought up by parents who grew up in the war, has lots of experience of 'making do' and re-using everything from clothes, to left over food, to candle wax. When we had a 'workshop' on local industry and harvest, one older member of our congregation showed us how he used plastic bottles as flower pots for seedlings. Re-using packaging, bottles, and many of the other things we throw away now needs to become a way of life if we are to deal with waste in the long-term. If we could begin to see our rubbish as a resource, rather than simply something to be disposed of, then we could begin to use it creatively. We could begin to share, even here, in the work of creation.

Natural waste is part of creation and is mostly positive; perhaps human-made waste can be the same. There is urgency here, as landfill sites are becoming obsolete. Within 15 years the 3 large Thames estuary sites will be full. No permission has been granted for further dumping. There is talk of incineration (which brings other environmental problems) but perhaps a new approach can be found, so that we share in God's work of creation in dealing with our rubbish.

With the coming of Jesus, human beings become part of a new creation (1 Corinthians), a new world order, implying something better. Mucking Tip appears a long way away from anything approaching a better world. The smell, the flies, the continual noise of lorry engines, and their bleeps, as they reverse, are part of everyday life for the residents of East Tilbury. For many this has led to a feeling of powerlessness: 'there is little we can do to change our lives, we just have to put up with it. We are dumped on, and nothing can be done about it'. For others this very adversity has become a spur to change things. In the last year with a public inquiry into a planning application to extend the life of the tip by 25 years, there has been some real community action. This time the community won, and the application was rejected. It was a remarkable victory, with people who had never spoken in public before, and who were terrified of doing so, giving evidence at the inquiry. People gained a little freedom, a step towards liberation, a taste of collective power. They took a step nearer to becoming what they are meant to be: people fulfilling their potential, discovering gifts they did not know they had, no longer afraid, they had a taste of the 'glorious liberty of the children of God'.

The tip itself is far from being a purely negative place. The land to the east of the tip, owned by the company, has become a conservation area and now has a very large reed bed with much new wildlife. The tip and its surrounding area is a great place for bird watching. In the future there will be a schools study centre on the site and the whole place will become parkland or recreation area. There is potential new life in this place of burial.

The prophets spoke in the power of the spirit of destruction and judgement, and the tip could be a place of destruction and judgement on the people of the 20th century for their way of life. Despite the sun and the strange beauty of the Thames marshes on the day of our visit, the Tip is a shocking place; a kind of hell with its hills of rubbish and earth, its smell, flies, preying, screaming seagulls and the constant roar of lorries. It is a ruined world. And maybe it is the door to a future hell, an environmental disaster. Do we really know what will happen to the plastic, and chemical waste that fills the tip, and what their lasting effect on the area will be, and whether the water table and the whole of the estuary will not in time be polluted through it?

But the prophets also held out the promise of a new age, a new kind of liberation and, maybe, alongside the judgement, we can perceive a message of hope, as we look at the discarded debris of our affluent throwaway society. The tip challenges us to seek new ways of living, a new life, to repent. People have already discovered some new possibilities for individual development through their opposition to the tip. The cattle, birds, fish and plant life, also speak of a transformation, a glimpse of new life, yet there must be more. We need to change our attitude to rubbish, so it becomes a resource rather than something that must be buried, hidden from view, merely scrapped.

The wind of the Thames marshes always blows, and as it sends the dust of the tip into the air, the paper flies up against the chain fence, and the smell wafts over the homes of those who live nearby, the paradoxical voice of the spirit may be heard: here is a place of judgement, but also a place of hope.

Back to contents

Late Vocations

for my father

(The following poem by Andrew J Powney is soon to be published in the journal "The Month". The Editor of "The Month" is offering a complimentary copy of the journal, which I can thoroughly recommend, to all readers of the Bradwell Papers who wish to write and ask for one from The Month, 114 Mount Street, London W1V 6AH. +LB)

Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:19

Half of it is maintenance, grime swept off the pyx, your new stole folded.

Half is skill, deft words among the silent pictures, made for conversation that late have now assumed your living: the lived-for woman heard in here before the round begins, the wants of children, her stale unworking husband you also hear who shifts his trade his only skill of silence through the dreams of truant sons between the weapons amnesties.

Artisan of dead emotion he is turning godless by the television to your bindings. This living is all we have of living.

All this will happen. You, as monks from my bright studies, before our university had formed its riches, are the friar and jack of all trades, working to readiness the name of Jesus.

Back to contents

Jottings from Norfolk

The Rev'd Sylvia Wood

(I enjoy receiving and reading the Parish Magazines of Bradwell Area churches. From time to time an article catches my eye. Here's one from Hutton. +LB)

I picked up a news-sheet from a (rare) open church in Norfolk recently whilst I was on retreat at a nearby convent.

What I read told me much about the anger, frustration and hopelessness of the local priest. In his letter to his scattered flock he berated, nagged and admonished in such a fashion I was surprised there was a flock at all and surprised he was still in office.

The reason for the outrage? Some people had obviously been on at him for not doing enough pastoral visiting. Others had obviously been moaning about declining numbers and the state of the church buildings - and still more about why they couldn't have 'one priest one church' like the old days. Sounds familiar?

The Vicar was leaving in September and their three churches were about to be made six and they'd be lucky indeed if they found another incumbent prepared to take on 6 churches, so they'd better roll up their sleeves and do some work!

It simply isn't possible for any one person to pastor adequately under such conditions and this man, I guess, would be fortunate if he escaped a break-down.

Whose fault? The vicar? The hierarchy? Society? Parishioners? GOD?

It's us. We hate change. We do not move readily from one scene to another. And yet, God founded his Church on a wandering people. People with a faith but no building. Yes, we need our buildings, somewhere to minister from and to worship God. But, as I visit non-churchgoing people in our parish, I am struck repeatedly by the belief in God the people hold, but also by an increasing awareness that the church in its institutionalised form is quite irrelevant to that belief. This means for me a radical re-think about the way I minister.

I read a book on retreat called 'Silence in God' by Andrew Norman. In one chapter it said 'Perhaps we ought more often to begin our evangelism by stimulating people to stop and listen to that which is already around them. Too often Christians out to convert imagine that they possess a faith that the unconverted desperately need and completely lack. More often the reality is that people will have already begun to feel after Him and will have some sort of implicit awareness of God. We might arouse less defensiveness if we began by inviting them to take this awareness more seriously, attending to it with greater concentration, than by treating them as if they were spiritual morons, and ourselves hard-sell salesmen'.

Another worrying feature I find about parish life is the creeping sectarianism, where we see the church as inclusively 'ours' and those who come to us for our services, to find God or whatever, as 'outsiders'. God has placed us here in Hutton as his servant-church and we would do well to grasp that nettle firmly or our theology will be impaired. The church belongs to all and to no one particular band. This is the privilege that the Church of England holds distinctively. If we couple this with what I said about evangelising we may find ourselves uncomfortably challenged and minds provoked. I hope I may stir your own thoughts as mine were when I read the Norfolk news-letter, even though you won't agree with everything I've said.