I spent a couple of hours on the train this afternoon and it gave me time to catch up with what the newspapers are saying about Jade Goody. The kindness is evident in most of what I read – and the recognition that she wasn’t able to be anything other than ‘in your face’. You could never accuse her of being a hypocrite.
This reminded me of some lines in a Leonard Cohen poem from 1996 called Better. He writes:
better than poetry
is my poetry
which refers
to everything
that is beautiful and
dignified, but is
neither of these itself
There are people who shine a (not always welcome) light on the world and place question marks about what we think is ‘normal’. This is the task of the poet. But it is also what I think has happened and is happening through the Jade Goody phenomenon: her transparent imperfection and other people’s treatment of her exposes the snobbery and prejudice we would rather not admit to. Stephen Fry on Twitter called her something like ‘Princess Diana from the wrong side of the tracks’ and he was right: much of the judgment piled on her during her notoriety phases appears to have been rooted in a sneering looking down the nose at someone ‘not like us’.
Cohen recognises that most of us are imperfect at how we express our lives as well as our art, but it is still the same beauty to which we point.
I just wonder what the atheist commentators actually mean when they say ‘Jade is at peace’. Genuine question.
March 23, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Not that I would in any way endorse him otherwise, but part of my problem with all the Jade stuff was articulated by Guido Fawkes, who mentions the three British service personnel whose bodies were repatriated over the weekend, but who were largely ignored because of the JG media feeding frenzy.
Also, I am always aware that Mothering Sunday is a difficult time for those who have been bereaved. Jade was not the only mother to die yesterday, just the only one who had Max Clifford doing her PR. Many other people have lived and died the same experiences Jade shared with the TV watching and tabloid reading public, the others simply didn’t have the chance to share.
March 24, 2009 at 10:00 am
Thank you for your piece on Jade Goody and I am glad to have found your blog. Great stuff- I wish more Bishop’s blogged! Keep at it. David
March 28, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Last evening a current well-known evangelist visited our church and during his talk he gave the impression that when at college he had the answers to other student’s questions; churches he has led have turned into marvellous ones; and his kids and family life are all wonderful!
I know some people are exceptional but when you have a preacher implying this is how it all should be, where does that leave the majority of ordinary mortals listening to him? – should we just give up and sink into apathy because we’re not good enough?
I think not!, and say thank heavens for people like Cohen who recognise that most of us are imperfect at how we express our lifes – but that’s not really the point, because it is the same beauty to which we are trying to point.
Anne.
March 28, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Anne, we are dogged with people like this. You could try challenging them and asking for evidence.
April 5, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Of Cohen’s many haunting comments on religion:
“Some women wait for Jesus, and some
some women wait for Cain, so I hang upon my altar I hoist my axe again…and I take the one who finds me to back to where it all began, when Jesus was the honeymoon,
and Cain was just the man.”