Wild boys never chose this way

We're back from France again. Went to the same place as last year, so I won't bore you with the details. This year was enhanced by hotter weather ( a definite improvement on the mudbath of New Wine, the theological content of which I will get round to posting about eventually) and children old enough to entertain themselves for longer thus leaving me and the missus with more time to read, relax and eat the local fayre, although I definitely do not recommend the tripe!

You know that thing where you say to your kids "Go on, eat up", well I wish I'd never said it after ordering "tripes a l'ancienne" only to discover it tasted like old socks and (possibly because it was a little too "ancienne") had a disastrous effect on my digestive system.

We also took in a local leisure facility called Cap Decouverte which I would thoroughly recommend if you're ever in the area.

Things I did on holiday I'd never done before (or not for a very long time anyway)

1. Eat Tripe (see above)

2. Ride a penny farthing (see photo)

3. Read an entire non-fiction book that wasn't about Theology or sport.

It was "Savage Girls and Wild Boys" by Michael Newton and I found it both moving and fascinating. It is about feral children through the ages and goes from the legend of Romulus and Remus through the medieval wild children of Europe to Kaspar Hauser, to awful stories of modern abuse of children locked away from human contact ( It was written before Josef Fritzl's abuse came to light).

I was interested in it initially because one of the cases was relatively local to where we were staying; then my background in linguistics kicked in (Newton quotes the first books on linguistics I ever read "Transformational Syntax" and "The Articulate Mammal").

Finally my passions were aroused because I just wanted to shout at the author "They have autism!" I know that's a bit of a generalisation, and it doesn't apply to the children who were abused, (except Kaspar Hauser) but the cases Newton examines mostly concern children who have little or no understanding of human language or social interaction, and are discovered living wild with animals. The experts attribute their lack of understanding of human social communication to the fact that they have lived in isolation or with animals whose social communication they do understand. Newton then reflects philosophically on what it means to be human (as opposed to simian/animal) concluding that it has to do with spoken language and "souls" - a useful term he uses to describe the treatment some of these kids went through is "soul murder".

However, having become something of an Autistic Spectrum nerd over the last 18 months (I have a son recently diagnosed as being on the Autistic spectrum and there are at least 2 other kids in our churches on the spectrum - don't get me started on undiagnosed adults), the descriptions of the children just kept pointing towards autism; thus an alternative view might be that far from developing these strange habits while living with animals, these kids had them when they were abandoned and/or rejected by their families and communities - indeed they are the reason they were rejected in the first place.

Any parent of a kid with ASD will know the frustrations that come with that; hundreds of years ago it was acceptable to ride into the woods and leave an unmanageable child there. Being human is a much more inclusive activity these days.

If anyone else out there has any helpful things to say about this I'd value them

You search much deeper within, through the way things appear...

Have you ever been to Disneyland or Euro Disney (Disneyland Paris or whatever) or any theme park?



has it ever reminded you of a church?



I used to teach English at a University in Paris where many of my students (because they could speak English) got vacation jobs at the then brand new Disney Park at the opposite end of our RER Train line. It was interesting for me to reflect with them about the role playing and the fakery, the play acting that effectively encompassed the whole place; nothing is real.



The characters are being played by people who are not really Mickey or Minnie or Stitch or whoever. They are just doing a job, playing a role. The streets and castles and restaurants and venues are all pretending to be something they are not. They are in the business of entertaining us by deceiving us (though not maliciously) into an experience which though fun is ultimately like the food you get there; very expensive and not sufficient to sustain healthy life.



I'm beginning to see that church (not my church or your church but just generic church) can sometimes stray over into this kind of territory. We are so desperate to attract and welcome people, that we effectively put on a show that is not a true reflection of who we are as a Christian community. We want to welcome people, but to what? We over promise, then we under deliver. I suspect people see through that kind of thing pretty quick and don't come back. Church in that sense then is fake; we are not real; either because we only do God for an hour on Sundays, or because we are afraid that is the case, even if it is not.

If only we could be more honest about who we really are - a broken people, the walking wounded. Church should be a place where we don't wear masks - whether that's individually - "I'm OK really" or corporately " we don't mind what you think or do" (that's more a head in the sand than a mask.)

If people join our church just because they are welcome, but never move on into the transformed life of the Kingdom, then we are Disneyland, because we are only showing the surface, not the depth of our Faith and love. The lunch isn't free, it comes with a price, and no one should say its easy. Disney church will only show the niece bits, not the hurting, the resentment or the depression.

And if we spend all our time and effort making church services look cool and trendy, we have no time or energy left for the business of getting out there to invite others in (or indeed getting out there to listen to where others are at).

Rant over.