In hierdie skrywe bespreek ek die derde en laaste boek van Richard Holloway. In sy jongste boek, Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2012), gee hy 'n oorsig van sy lewe; veral hoe sy idees verander het. Van die begin af is daar verwysings na Demas wat volgens 2 Timoteus 4:10 die teenswoordige wêreld lief gekry het. Alexandrië verwys na Holloway se geboortedorp, noord-wes van Glasgow in Skotland.
Sy pa was 'n lid van "Scotland's oldest regiment, the drinkers" (Kindle 2634), maar was 'n goeie vader en het hard ten behoewe van sy gesin gewerk. Later vertel die outeur hoe 'n goeie organiseerder sy pa was, bv van onwettige dobbelbyeenkomste. Daar was ook 'n verbod op die verkoop van drank op Sondae, maar bona fide reisigers kon drank by hotelle kry. Sy pa het graag 'n bus gehuur, dit vol van sy vriende gelaai en dan die pad na die een hotel na die ander gevat. "Drymen ... had a nice hotel" (K 3524). Laat in die dag het hulle vrolik en luidrugtig teruggekom. Só het Holloway "the sadness of Scotland's singing" (K 442) leer ken.
Sy ma is as tienjarige in 'n weeshuis opgeneem. "There was always something eager and unsatisfied about her" (K 462). Op agtien het sy getrou. Sy het straf gerook. Om van haar omstandighede te ontsnap, was sy verslaaf aan rolprentvertonings. Haar seun het haar na die bioskoop vergesel en lewenslank hierdie verslawing gedeel. Moontlik is dit wat van hom 'n storieverteller gemaak het. Hy het daarvan gehou om alleen in die veld en berge te loop. Sy suster Gertie was vyf jaar ouer en Helen drie jaar jonger as hy. Hy skets hulle as 'n arm maar gelukkige gesin. "We weren't a church-going family" (K 610).
Holloway het nie tot die klein plaaslike kerkie aangetrokke gevoel nie, "but with what it pointed towards. It was a place that suggested elsewhere" (K 618). "It hinted at a distant gate, slightly ajar ... drawing me into the possibility of something else" (K 622). Die priester het gesê die kerk bestaan in drie dimensies: "militant here on Earth; expectant in Purgatory; and triumphant in Heaven" (K 622). "He painted a picture of the priesthood as a heroic calling, reserved for those with a vocation" (K 626). Priesterskap was 'n "high and lonely task" (K 630). Kerksang het Holloway aanvanklik na die kerk toe aangetrek. Hy het een van die altaarseuns geword. Toe hy veertien was, is hy gekies om agt jaar lank opleiding in priesterskap aan die Society of the Sacred Mission se Kelham Kollege ('n Anglikaanse klooster), naby Newark, te ondergaan.
As ervare skrywer begin Holloway die boek met 'n voorwoord waarin hy sy onlangse besoek aan die begraafplaas te Kelham beskryf. Met hulle grafte as aanleiding, vertel hy van die mense wat die leser later in die teks as bv dosente teëkom. Die kollege bestaan nie meer nie. "Change hurts" (K 106). In die boord sien hy vrugtebome "still bearing fruit, as trees do long after there's no one left to eat it" (K 174). Holloway het in 1948 by die kollege aangemeld. Ses jaar lank was dit sy tuiste.
Hy het nie die lesings geniet nie. "I am not a teachable person, I am quite good at learning for myself if my interest is ignited" (K 228). Soms was hy lus om sy opleiding te staak. Maar hy het volhard. "I loved the alternations of gladness and sorrow, light and shade that marked the passing of our days, as we followed the ancient cycle of feast and fast" (K 720). "I fell in love with the romance of extreme monasticism" (K 873). God "might forge us into instruments of his mission to win back a world that had forgotten his love" (K 794). "I loved the poetry of the liturgy and the way it led me through the story of Jesus week by week" (K 739). "Those were sweet moments, because they were fleeting" (K 781).
Kelham "was a complete culture that appeared to be unconcerned with what went on outside its gates" (K 790). Kelham "was a blend of physical labour, intellectual effort and spiritual struggle" (K 914). Reeds in hierdie stadium het Holloway "the vulgarity of the idea of Hell" verwerp (K 812). 'n Groter probleem was "the God for whom I longed but whose presence continued to elude me" (K 1221). "The godless may no longer believe in God, but they can go on missing him when he leaves" (K 734).
Na vier jaar te Kelham, toe hy agtien was, moes sy eers sy nasionale weermagdiensplig van twee jaar ondergaan. Priesters was veronderstel om minstens vyf jaar na voltooiing van hulle opleiding ongetroud te bly. Terwyl hy vakansies op 'n plaas gewerk het, het sy vlees al hoe meer beheer van sy gees oorgeneem: "An endless struggle with the flesh" (K 1151). "I had sinned in thought, word and deed" (K 970). "Sex was as deadly as it was fascinating" (K 1011). "Obsessively denying yourself something you desperately want can be as addictive as being enslaved to its performance" (K 1156). Aan die einde van sy teologiese opleiding sou hy egter die gelofte van "poverty, chastity and obedience" moet aflê (K 1188). "Gambling one's whole life on what was far from a sure bet [God se bestaan en die ewige lewe in die hemel] had been part of the appeal of Kelham theology" (K 1843).
In 1956 het hy vir twee jaar na Accra, Ghana, in Wes-Afrika, as die biskop se assistent gegaan. Die aanleiding hiervoor was waarskynlik omdat hy en 'n ander mansstudent tekens van verliefdheid op mekaar getoon het. Blykbaar het die owerstes dit gerade geag om Holloway, voor hy sy studie kon voltooi, na elders te verplaas. Voor sy vertrek na Ghana moes hy leer tik en motorbestuur. Die skip het eers Freetown in Sierra Leone aangedoen: "I was electrified by die number of bare-breasted women" (K 1437). In Accra was dit waarskynlik dieselfde storie. Later in 'n katedraal dink hy aan "those voluptuous Ghanaian women" (K 2206). Holloway het ook nie-goedgekeurde boeke, bv van James Joyce, gelees. Die biskop "did not think I was capable of the kind of implicit obedience life in a religious order required" (K 1455). "It's hard when you discover that the person you are is not someone you admire" (K 1466).
Holloway het aan die Biskop van Glasgow geskryf en daar is besluit dat hy nie na Kelham sou terugkeer nie: "You will do a year's study at the College of the Scottish Church in Edinburgh" (K 1478). In 1958 was hy terug in Skotland maar hierdie keer in "the slum capital of Europe" (K 1539). Hy vertel hoe hy in 'n krotbuurt geestelike en veral maatskaplike werk gedoen het. "The paradox of my own relationship with God was an increasing sense of loss accompanied by an undiminished sense of demand. Half the time I wasn't sure God was there, yet a powerful sense of obligation to something remained. What remained was Jesus ... he said it was actions not words that God was interested in, mercy and justice not professions of belief. He left us with the paradox of what sounded like God's atheism: it wasn't creeds he wanted, but the battle against oppression ... Jesus had startled its leaders by telling them God was not on their side, but on the side of those they tampled on ... What you had to do was clothe the naked, feed the hungry and give cold water to the thirsty. God was no longer on his supernatural throne. The place to find him was among the dispossessed, among the wretched of the earth" (K 1609).
In 1961 het Holloway Amerika, onder andere die Union Theological Seminary in New York City, besoek. Hier het hy Jean Kennedy ontmoet wat in 1962 as vrywilliger in Edinburgh kom werk het. "Americans carried God the way the Israelites carried the Ark of the Covenant, through the wilderness of their wanderings ... America believed in belief ... It wasn't what you believed that mattered either, but that you believed" (K 1832). "I was beginning to wonder if God was not the ultimate object of desire of the romantic imagination. It was God's elusiveness that seemed to be part of his appeal" (K 1843).
In Edinburgh het Holloway begin om nagmaal aan enigeen te bedien, maar dit was nie in sy Skotse Episkopaalse Kerk toelaatbaar nie. Die Biskop "told me that what I was doing was wrong, but it was not a sin" (K 1906). "I was also ignoring the rule about not marrying the divorced in Church" (K 1910). "It was the same when I preformed my first gay marriage ten years later ... What I did not reflect on at the time was that this untroubled capacity for ignoring rules that struck me as inhumane or silly defined me as an anarchist" (K 1914).
Holloway en Jean Kennedy het op mekaar verlief geraak. Om te trou was problematies. "As long as I stayed single, there was still a chance I'd make it through to the absolute life ... Marriage ... would commit me to the world of the body, the world of compromise and accommodation" (K 1950). In 1963 is hulle getroud. Mettertyd is twee dogters en 'n seun gebore.
"Being in charge of a church suggested arrival rather than pursuit, the settler rather than the charismatic drifter" (K 2023). Holloway is geneig om homself deurgaans as 'n mislukking, as iemand wat nie aan die verwagtinge voldoen het nie, en as 'n nie-heilige, as iemand met "high-octane doubt" (K 2030), voor te stel. Daarteenoor ervaar hy dat "all institutions over-claim for themselves" (K 2008). Hulle verlang die vergenoegdheid van sekerheid en besittings.
Volgens Holloway het daar 'n verskuiwing in die geskiedenis van die christelike geloof plaasgevind, "from poetry to packaging ... from a movement that tried to follow the example of Jesus to an institution that hardened round a particular interpretation of his meaning ... the shift is called the evolution from the Jesus of History to the Christ of Faith" (K 2060). Toe 'n Paasfees aanbreek, kon Holloway nie oor die Opstanding preek nie, want "we know that dead bodies do not resuscitate themselves" (K 2084). "If [we] really believed in the resurrection of the dead, why mourn them so?" (K 2556). "In my parish I saw no dead rising, no lame leaping, no blind seeing" (K 2906). Verwant hieraan: "I never did believe in a Second Coming in history" (K 2756).
"A few months later a bigger crisis hit. God himself went absent on me" (K 2099). "Having an affair with God is a double deprivation, since he is neither emotionally nor physically available" (K 2106). "I had failed the call of God to follow him with absolute abandonment. I was a muddled, compromised, divided man who had let God down" (K 2810). "I was but dust ... You can't always expect dust to be up to the mark" (K 3618). Holloway haal Hamm uit Beckett se Endgame aan: "The bastard, he doesn't exist" (K 2106). God word "the Great Absence" (K 2668). "The world did not seem any more redeemed after than before Christ" (K 2910). Holloway verwys na "the devices religion uses to compensate for that absence, the different forms of prayer, the sacramental practices, all designed to fill the emptiness and compensate for the lack of response from God" (K 2668).
"Strictly speaking, agnosticism should not be described as a hypothesis, because it is not so much positing an answer to the question as learning to live without one" (K 2114). "Living with the unanswerable question is the key to our humanity" (K 2581). Maar "I wanted to hold on to the poetry of religion" (K 2232). "I decided to act as though I believed" (K 2241). "Were we not all editors of our own Gods, anyway?" (K 2245). Iedere kerkgenootskap en lidmaat pas religie aan soos dit hom pas. Holloway verwys na "the Bible within the Bible ... bits of the Holy Book that were held to be more profound and important than other bits" (K 4112). "But I was never able to train myself to become a victorious battler against philosophical atheism" (K 2256). "Religious faith is based on a massive, unquantifiable hunch" (K 2426). "The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty. Where you have certainty, you don't need faith" (K 2419).
Gelowige christelikheid het vir Holloway geword "a way of life that was as dead as steam trains and horse-drawn carriages" (K 3003). Hy verwys na "religion's Stone Age attitudes" (K 4244). 'n Terugkeer na "vestments and candles and incense and processions and acolytes" (K 3008) sou nie religieuse herlewing tot gevolg hê nie. Die Kerk dra sy eie ondergang in homself: "The gravitational pull of the past and the way it distorted our efforts to respond to the future" (K 3047). Dit is 'n geval van "retro-chic" (K 3055). "I can't say that the pop-concert style of worship did much for me" (K 3701). "In Rome everything is forbidden till it is made compulsory" (K 3157). "A muddled Church for muddled people" (K 4147). Holloway: "No infallible Bible. No infallible Church. No infallible anything" (K 4144). "The Church wastes its substance in prolonged meetings to discuss and refine and endlessly reorganise itself, the mark of institutions in crisis throughout history" (K 3679).
"I had come to mind religious over-confidence more than I minded its atheistic opposite ... religious language had ceased to be able to convey the mystery of the possibility of God" (K 4376). Oor Holloway se uittrede uit sy klerklike ampte: "It was a relief now to name my belief as an emptiness that I was no longer prepared to fill with words" (K 4384). "Was religion a lie? Not necessarily, but it was a mistake ... The mistake was to think religion was more than human. I was less sure whether God was also just a human invention, but I was quite sure religion was" (K 4439).
"Religion is human, and like humanity it is both a glory and a scandal. It is full of pity and full of cruelty. Just like us. So is the Bible" (K 4465). "Don't abandon it, any more than we ought to abandon the great flawed cruel epics of the human imagination: but don't listen to its mad voices" (K 4469). "I don't any longer believe in religion, but I want it around" (K 4517). "I no longer want to persuade anyone to believe anything - except that cruelty, especially theological cruelty, has to be opposed, if necessary to the death" (K 4521).
Hiermee is ek vir eers klaar met Holloway.
Johannes Comestor