In the furore surrounding David Cameron’s recent (2014) assertion that Britain is a Christian country, little was made of the fact that he finds peace at Anglican Communion services. ‘I find a little bit of peace and hopefully a bit of guidance’, he announced at a Downing Street reception before Easter.
Cameron’s words conceal an important admission; he does not have all the answers and needs wisdom. Most people will recognise that problem. It can be hard to distinguish between genuine conviction about what to do from the pressures of a situation or the demands of others. It is easy to be driven by events.
Problems of this kind are often discussed in the scriptures. For example, in the First Book of Kings Elijah discovers that the voice of God is to be found not in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in the ‘still small voice’—or, in another translation, the ‘sound of sheer silence’. Spiritual wisdom, it seems, is not always conveyed through what is powerful or visually exciting, but often steals into the soul in an unobtrusive way.
But getting in touch with the ‘still small voice’ requires some kind of interior work. Self-knowledge is needed—and self-control. Mahatma Gandhi said: ‘We must be the change we want to see in the world’—a quotation that Cameron cited in his New Year message of 2005/06. It is an admirable idea. But no one acquainted with Gandhi’s biography could say that his courage and depth of insight were acquired on the cheap. A contemplative in politics, he took the view that a deeper, motivational change was needed in people, if they were to be reconcilers.
Depth can also be achieved through going through hardship. I imagine Cameron might say that the sadness of losing his son Ivan has made him a more reflective person. Prophetic figures like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Nelson Mandela were changed by their years in prison.
Shakespeare--much in the news because of the 450th anniversary of his birth—strongly believed in the importance of character. It is evident in his tragedies. King Lear is so blinded by vanity that he cannot read clearly the motives of the people around him; and, consequently, he makes errors of judgement that plunge his country into chaos. Macbeth’s ambition, freed from moral constraints, also leads to national upheaval.
The purely biographical approach to history needs to be treated with caution. But, looking at the last hundred years, it is hard not to agree with Shakespeare that character flaws in people can have a wider impact. Think, for example, of Stalin’s impatience and frustration—and the fact that his programme of modernisation was implemented with such haste that it created long-term social problems; or Nixon’s chip on his shoulder about the ‘establishment’, and the suspicion of Washington that this engendered in him. Of course, character issues always emerge in a social context. But how shallow is the idea that public and private can be neatly compartmentalised.
In the West, we make a great virtue of liberty—and rightly so. But, as some Soviet dissidents used to say, an ‘external’ liberty does not in itself resolve problems that lie inside a person. For example, Andrei Amalrik—who spent some time in Siberian exile—once challenged a fellow activist along these lines: ‘You constantly speak of freedom, but of external freedom. You say nothing of inner freedom. . . Such freedom and the responsibility attributed to it is a necessary prerequisite of external freedom.’
We are not used to hearing politicians talk about inner peace and guidance. But if ‘truth has a quiet breast’, as Mowbray says in Richard II, we should welcome it. If politicians spent more time in quiet and contemplation, it would not mean that they would always make better decisions. And there can be a danger in trying to harness God to selfish agendas or party political ambitions. But a culture that brings the active and the contemplative together will in the end be a deeper one.
Cameron, Merkel, Obama—contemplatives? Why not?
Dr Philip Boobbyer
Reader in History, University of Kent
NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.
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