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Introduction

If there is one symbol that can sum up contemporary Western culture, it is probably the mobile phone. Anyone who has ever sat next to a mobile user on a train has received the clear message that this is a symbol of status, busyness, maybe even of arrogance: ‘I’m important and I’m going to make sure you know I’m here.’ It’s also a reminder of our global perspective – practically nowhere now is unreachable – and the pressure on our time. No time, it seems, can be wasted in just being – doing and working are the main justifications for existing. The pace of modern life feels unstoppable. Life, we’re led to believe, has to be loud, fast, commercial, materialist and obsessed with achievement. Nothing else counts. The insistent beep of the mobile has become as much part of the fabric of our lives as the values it represents.

Mobiles also speak powerfully of another aspect of contemporary life: our desperate need for recognition and connection, to be heard and seen for who we really are, if only we can work out who that is. Perhaps they actually speak of insecurity, rather than arrogance. ‘Please acknowledge me,’ they trill. ‘I matter. I’m here. Notice me!’ They speak across a hungry void, trying to communicate, filling the emptiness with sound. Perhaps each individual conversation signifies little except to those most immediately involved, but each one is a small symbol of the universal human drive to make some kind of impact on the world, to communicate something unique, and to be heard.

The events of Tuesday 11 September, 2001, burned themselves into our consciousness in an unprecedented way. That day, too, mobile phones acquired yet another significance. There were a number of stories of people who found themselves on the hijacked planes or in the World Trade Centre, using their mobiles to say to family and friends: ‘I want you to know I love you before I die.’ Archbishop Rowan Williams, in his book of reflections on the events of that day, rightly points out the dangers of making cheap theological points out of people’s suffering. Not everyone’s last thoughts would have been of love – there must also have been fear, hatred, anger.1 Yet, as he also acknowledges, there was a poignancy in the way many people needed to reach out to each other in those last moments, to communicate something of real and lasting importance, to reassert their sense of interconnection and belonging. When you are about to die, money and power lose all meaning. They cannot define who you are as a person. So the mobiles still said ‘I’m important, I’m here’, but we suddenly heard them in a new way.

Any discussion of the nature of the modern world now has to take into account the reality of global terrorism. It has become increasingly clear that there is no immunity from the effects of terror: contrary to what the affluent West may once have wanted to imagine, it is no longer something which only happens to other people in inaccessible parts of the world. Recent rhetoric about a ‘war on terror’ highlights the larger-scale battle for moral and ideological supremacy which has shaped Western cultural identity in the global era. In a climate of general insecurity about what Western culture actually is, that identity has been easier to describe negatively than positively: we may not be too clear about who ‘we’ are, but we know that we are not ‘them’. This defensive mentality contributes largely to the continuing East–West standoff. Such an atmosphere breeds mutual suspicion, confusion and disinformation over core values. It does not encourage the possibility of finding an adequate response to terrorism or to the conditions which have caused it to flourish. Instead, what is desperately needed, if paranoia and hysteria are not to triumph, is a more sustained attempt to understand those it would be easier to demonize as ‘not like us’. Such attempts to understand the roots of terror need not be seen as condoning evil. A sensible and mature approach to the manifestation of evil is very necessary in every culture – perhaps even more so in a culture which has become uncomfortable with conventional religious language and the idea that it might have something to say to us.

Franciscan spirituality is perhaps uniquely placed to grapple with these dominant issues for our culture. In particular, it presents an important challenge to the individualism which also characterizes contemporary culture, and which has contributed to the harmful separation between ‘them’ and ‘us’. The phenomenon of globalism, for example, is not necessarily a bad thing. It does not have to mean a characterless homogeneity, or the automatic subsuming of the small by the rich and powerful. A positive perspective on globalism does not shrink the world but opens it up. With access to more information about the world and its people comes more awareness of what life is like for those people; in that awareness is found the possibility of learning how to tolerate difference for the greater good.

Underlying this increased sense of global citizenship is a sense of connectedness which simply was not available to us before. In this light, the Franciscan emphasis on community is more than a response to the need to be recognized and noticed; it is a living out of the universal worth of each person. Ironically, considering the anti-Islamic dogma which characterized Francis’ time as it does our own, this vision of universal and mutual concern for human welfare is oddly similar to the Muslim concept of the umma. Human beings drastically need a way of living faith with integrity which does not require the destruction of those who think differently. To be able to see another, however ostensibly different, as a fellow human being made in the image of God, is a significant step towards peace. The moment when ‘them’ becomes ‘us’ is a profound moment of conversion.

As we shall explore in later chapters, the life of St Francis was a series of conversion moments, each one a staging post on a continuing journey deeper and deeper into union with Christ. In one typically dramatic and literal gesture, Francis publicly cast off everything his earthly father had ever given him – home, name, security, wealth, clothing – to become utterly dependent on God. Instead of an earthly family, Francis came to recognize all creatures as his brothers and sisters, seeing and revering in them something of the image of the Creator. Above all, he wanted to show the reality of his conversion by embracing a whole new way of living – and he did so to such effect that the world around him began to question its former values, and to explore afresh what it might mean to live for Christ alone.

Francis is a joyful figure. His life was characterized by celebration, laughter and a deep love of the whole creation. The very attractiveness of the image can often encourage a distorted picture (‘St Francis of Assisi? Isn’t he the saint who liked animals?’). If that had been all, he would have nothing of worth to say to our current situation. Popular piety often depicts him as a cosy little pastel saint surrounded by birds. To see him in that light, however, trivializes his true impact. For Francis was, and is, not just a voice only for the good times of fun and celebration. His Christian discipleship was set firmly in the way of the cross. The process of his own conversion led him to preach in no uncertain terms of the importance of repentance, of dying in order to live.

There can be no easy path to resurrection. If there is any meaning to be found in pain and death, it is found in and through it, not in spite of it. Franciscan spirituality does not ignore the dark side of life. Instead, it seeks to find traces of the divine in everything, no matter how prosaic or painful, in order to help us keep our hearts and minds open to the promise of resurrection. There is no ideal world in which to undertake our search for God. We have only the broken, embattled world in which we already live – and in which God’s love is already abundantly at work, if only we could see it.

If we are to understand Francis’ importance as a signpost for our contemporary questioning, we will need to re-examine some of the popular myths about him. To do so need not destroy the true core of his attraction. Instead, the fire of his conversion can inspire and set us alight to find God at work in our own time. As a youth, Francis sought glamour and fame through service as a knight. Choosing instead to serve his Master in heaven, his hunger for fame and glory was transformed into a lasting joy in simplicity. So Francis can now prompt us to rediscover our own true desire. He accompanies us as we hunt for meaning and for God in the ‘real world’ we live in. He can lead us to do battle with false priorities, both in ourselves and in our culture. The world needs to hear Francis’ message again – perhaps more than ever as we come to terms with the fragility of existing political, economic and religious structures. His ministry of peacemaking and reconciliation (‘taming’ hungry wolves, speaking with the Muslim Sultan at the time of the Fifth Crusade) has an obvious, urgent, contemporary relevance. But his insistence on a literal following of Christ reminds us how much it can cost to choose the way of peace in any age.

Franciscan spirituality is often described as very down-to-earth. It does not shrink from encountering reality head on: but it always tries to do so with love. The world we now live in is as divided, unjust and violent as was Francis’ own. Yet in that same world he saw endless causes for hope, for rejoicing, as he saw Christ’s presence mirrored in every creature he encountered. So there is no excuse for giving up on this twenty-first-century world, for retiring into cynicism or despair at our apparent failure to progress. People today need to know they are lovable and valuable as much now as they ever did – perhaps even more so. They need hope. Whether or not they adhere to a religious faith, people still need to hear and understand the promise of resurrection – that even after death and destruction, life can still flourish.

The world as we know it has not been destroyed by terrorism. The same apparently trivial mobile conversations still go on, as they always did – but underneath their irritating electronic beeping, it is perhaps easier than before to discern the voices asking ‘Who am I? What is my place in this world? If our hold on life is so fragile, how can I ever again believe that I really matter?’ Rooted in life as it truly is, able to spot traces of God at work in every human event from birth to death, Franciscan spirituality offers the possibility of a positive response to such essential questions.

Universal Vocation

Nearly eight hundred years after Francis’ death, there are millions of people across the world who try to represent the values and challenges of that little poor man in the way they live their daily lives. Franciscans live out in microcosm the vocation of all Christians – to love and to be present to a world which too often stifles the voices of the poor and insignificant. We know the importance of being there with those who hurt, reflecting Christ by continuing to love despite the cost, and by daring to hang on to our humanity even when reality starts to bite. Franciscans are called to live as an incarnational presence in the world. Anyone who walks in the footsteps of Francis is led right into the middle of all the mess caused by evil and suffering. He refused to shy away from painful confrontations with reality, but insisted that God’s voice can and must be heard in every situation. Only by following his example can we stand any chance in our own time of getting across the vital message that we are all God’s people, and God does not leave us to hurt alone. It is a risky vocation, but one essential for the survival of our world. For it is into the whole range of human experience, not just into the easily sanitized parts, that God comes in the shape of Christ.

Perhaps the costliest part of a Franciscan vocation is to recognize that it is not only the victims but also the perpetrators of violence and terror who are our brothers and sisters. Demonizing those who do terrible things cannot help. It is perhaps only by taking the risk of acknowledging their humanity as of equal validity with our own, that we can hope to make the voice of love and peace heard above the screams of hatred and vengeance. Each one of us needs to make that journey of acknowledgement, to recognize that we are already involved, and we cannot pretend otherwise. We too have to recognize our potential to do evil as well as good. Whether in the World Trade Centre, the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Omagh, in Israel or Palestine, in Auschwitz, in Iraq or Sierra Leone or Sudan or Vietnam, it is our brothers and sisters who have been and are being killed. And those who kill are human like other humans: human, that is, exactly like us.

If there is any hope of bringing lasting good out of the evils of terrorism, war and hatred, we need to hear the challenge of prophets like Francis, who confront our values but affirm our humanity in the face of what we know of its destructive potential. We need to reflect on who we are and the values we really wish to promote in the world – and then get on with living them. By exploring what it means to walk in the way of St Francis in our world today, I wonder if we might not begin to find seeds of hope blossoming even out of the most appalling destruction.

It may seem an obscenity even to try to find anything resembling Good News as we struggle to come to terms with a world where terrorism is a commonplace means of communication. However, if we can continue to believe in a God who is present in some way in every human experience, we may begin to find a way forward, however halting and inadequate it seems. Over and over again we are called to contemplate the mystery that even in the worst times, when Easter is unimaginably far away, God is nevertheless right there at work. God does not remain safely on the outside looking on at our suffering, but is deeply, intimately, involved with it. We do not like reminders of our vulnerability and neediness. But in the Incarnation, God deliberately takes our vulnerable humanity and lives it fully, absolutely – messiness, failure, death and all.

The keynotes of Franciscan spirituality are humility, love and joy. For Francis, and for those who seek to walk in his way, they are the fruits of that continuing process of conversion which begins with Jesus’ call to ‘come, follow me’.2 They allow us to examine new ways of engaging with the world. The attempt to live with others in humility, love and joy opens up the possibility of finding and reflecting Christ anywhere we happen to be; the more broken and damaged our world appears, the more it needs to see humility, love and joy in action.

Saints are ordinary people who find in themselves the resources to do extraordinary things. Francis’ way of life was devastatingly simple. He witnessed to a manner of living which is rooted in dependence on God, rather than on any power or status we may have accumulated for ourselves. Everything we have has been given to us, and to come with honesty before God we need to start, as Francis did, with nothing. God looks with love on our frailties and hesitations, and still he invites us: ‘Come, follow me’.

Modern life, at least in the affluent West, offers a bewildering range of choices and possibilities. We are uncertain what to choose. How will we know if we have made the right choice? Competing values clamour for our attention until we are almost paralysed by indecision. We yearn for simplicity. But to begin again with nothing feels very exposed. We are afraid of our vulnerability. A life of humility, love and joy in the pattern of St Francis offers a strange freedom, but one so different from what we are used to that we scarcely recognize what it has to offer.

Even if we can bear to risk it, the way ahead is by no means easy. The complex questions of existence do not simply melt away. Yet Francis’ life, shorn of choice, free from all encumbrances, but radiantly in love with God, offers a hopeful model for life in harmony with the true ground of our being:

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well.3

Notes

1 Archbishop Rowan Williams, Writing in the Dust, Hodder & Stoughton, 2002, chapter 1.

2 Matthew 19:21.

3 T.S.Eliot, ‘Little Gidding’, in Four Quartets, Faber and Faber, 1963.