I often read the monthly issue of the Balsall Heathan that Leonora brings home. And if your are wondering - heathan (not heathen) in this case has nothing to do with faiths. The Balsall Heathan is the community newletter of Balsall Heath, Birmingham (UK). In the September 2007 issue a piece under the "Balsall Heath Forum Focus" grabbed my attention. It was entitled: "Can this really be happening?" and it was about the state of the back entranceto the garden and yard of an elderly citizen. It was like a South American jungle and inaccessible. Apparently there was no help from the environmental services and so it was left to a group of concerned folks from the community to do the clearing and cleaning up.
While such neglect raises ones blood pressure (getting angry) and the community taking the initiative to make a visible difference lowers it by giving hope a concrete shape, I am intrigued by the story behind the plot of of overgrown land. From the piece, I learnt that it is owned by the City Council and that there are many such plots in the city But precisely because it is the City Council's there is always ambiguity and confusion as to who owns it - and hence who tends it. The article referred to these plots of land as confused spaces and suggest the need to reclaim them.
Confused Spaces started my mind working overtime.In the context of theologising, I love the descriptor 'confused spaces' as this aptly sums up my own journey with its multiplicity of faith impluses that shape me as an Indo-Caribbean-Guyanese male residing in Birmingham. It fits in very well with my call for an Anansi hermeneutics and the reclaiming of limbo and limbo spaces as a paradigm for doing theology. For it is the in-between spaces, the confused and contradictory spaces that offer ripe possibiltiies to experience moments of transcendence and catch a glimpse of the divine - not in the neat and dogmatic categories we tend to parcel out "truth" in. Like Anansi, I thrive in confused and ambivalent spaces as I am forced to risk throwing myself at the mercy of grace, rather than attempting to come up with quick, easy and exact answers that bring closure on the movement of the divine.
In the meantime congrats to the community for taking the initiative!
copyright jagessar
