Love Is All You Need?

It is not easy to “love thy neighbour”, especially when it’s not reciprocated, but I suppose that is the point of this Christian exhortation. Anyway, one tries. It is not necessary to subscribe to Christianity to realise the logic of getting along with the neighbours. ‘Live and let live’ is the secular equivalent recipe for peace and harmony. (I have always thought that “love” is not quite the right word to use, by the way. Love seems too intimate and intrusive a concept to be appropriate to neighbourly interactions. I daresay it is possible for love to occur, though its romantic implications could lead to complications. It is far more likely – and, perhaps, advisable – that relations are established on friendly, cordial or respectful grounds.)

This week, I attended the funeral of the father of an old friend, a man I had liked and respected. The sadness and sense of loss was mitigated, as it often is, by the social aspect of the event: the coming together to grieve for the departed, salute their achievements and face up, together and publicly, to the inevitability of life’s cycle. In this respect, the funeral was – for me, at least - an apposite and satisfying event. There was, however, one fly in the ointment: an aggressive vicar. The main service was held, appropriately, in the parish church which, to an atheist guest like me, is a bit of a challenge. But I am used to being invited to ceremonies in churches, synagogues and mosques (once) and have found a way to overcome my aversion. I focus on the idea that the main event is not the worship of a god, but the celebration of the human condition, facilitated by the institutions of religion. As one rabbi put it, “we worry more about the purity of dogma than about the integrity of love”. I am, therefore, always glad to be invited and hopeful that there is an understanding that active participation in the religious rites is neither expected nor required of outsiders.

Which brings me to the aggressive vicar. In previous experiences of christenings, bar mitzvahs, weddings, funerals et cetera, I have followed the crowd and stood, sat, bowed my head or knelt as and when required. I have never felt uncomfortable refraining from praying or singing. After all, I usually don’t know the form and, when I do, only from residual (and fallible) memory. I gave up on the belief a long time ago. This time, however, I had the feeling that the vicar disapproved of my restraint. I was convinced that he was willing me to open my mouth and sing along to the hymns – even though I was not the only one mute. Perhaps I was being paranoid and the other refrainers got the same treatment. He might have been scanning the room for unbelievers, determined to make them feel that the wrath of his god would punish us for refusing to see the light and truth. Whether this was my imagining or not, he most certainly had a heavy-handed way of proselytising his god-fearing agenda, so much so that I felt he was co-opting the spirit of the ceremony to promote his religious agenda.

The vicar was at the door as we filed out of the church, shaking hands with everyone who passed, while keeping an eye on the collections going into the plate. There was no way to avoid shaking his hand as I passed. To do so would have caused offence where none was intended and so I brazened it out, looking him in the eye and thanking him, in a love-thy-neighbour gesture, for the service. I swear he glared at me in return.