Reading and Retreat at St Deiniol’s Library.

Today I'm off to St Deiniol's for a personal reading retreat. I have to be in Crewe for a prior commitment Thursday coming, and the chance to combine that trip with a few days at St Deiniol's 40 minutes away was too good to miss. The banner under the photo syas something very near to my own sentiments – with just the moving of an 'S' – Libraries Matter!

I want to do some further work on Psalm 119 reflecting on the psalm as theological education within a wisdom curriculum. Not sure what will come out of this but I am trying to find a handle on Wisdom Psalms, and especially this elaborately constructed eulogy on the law of God, as structured encouragement to live Torah. The connections between Torah nurtured wisdom and theological education as life shaped by intentional practices of obedience to God, seem to me to promise important insights into what shapes and sustains ministry. In recent years there has been a growing recognition that ministry has its own competences. These are not mere practical skills, but grow out of theological and spiritually formative experience, and such competences express both the wisdom of a long, rich pastoral tradition, while also requiring of us an innovative adaptability in embodying and practising wise ministry in a contemporary and changing context.

My current commentary enthusiasm, Sam Balentine's commentary on Job will accompany me and I've scheduled some longer periods of reading in order to immerse myself more deeply in the flow of this remarkable volume. I'm also taking David Ford's Christian Wisdom, one of several volumes held back till they can be read without the interruption of normal life! It's the first of five big volumes I'm hoping to meander through by a daily diet of manageable chunks and careful note-taking.

Aside from those the library at St Deiniol's has enough variety to keep me going – including a superb Victorian poetry section. Books, music, running shoes, morning prayers, a cake and coffee shop across the road of which our Ministry Advisor advised a level of restraint (aye right!), – not doing the ascetic retreat, more an exercise in taking life easy, in a serious but not over-intense way – you know, the discipline of responsible freedom. So what would be responsible freedom in a coffee and cake shop? Hmmm? I'll let you know after some experiementation. No internet access for a few days so next blogging is after I get back.