Living Wittily

Karl Barth, Shovel by Shovel, and Wheelbarrow by Wheelbarrow

Written by

admin

in

12715647_532024216966232_5068666070005159282_nIn 1952, the Methodist New Testament scholar, Vincent Taylor, produced a commentary on the Gospel of Mark which became a benchmark for thorough exegesis, a model of the discipline. Taylor took account of all aspects of the text including lexical, textual, grammatical, syntactical, intra-textual and theological, and the result was a near encyclopaedic and detailed exposition of the Greek text of Mark's Gospel. It is still not fully past its use by date.

He was once asked how he had completed such a monumental project. He told the parable of the topsoil and the wheelbarrow. Having moved house, and a keen gardener, he had a large truck load of topsoil delivered, if I remember the story correctly, ten tons. The driver dumped all of it on his front driveway. The only way to move it to the back garden was shovel by shovel, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow. And that, said the good Dr Taylor, was also how he wrote his commentary – over the years, word by word, verse by verse and chapter by chapter. 

Faced with any major task or project it's good advice. You get it done by doing it, the cumulative result of regular, disciplined work, bit by bit, day by day. Which brings me to Karl Barth and his Church Dogmatics. I want to read Volumes IV.1 and IV.2 – I've wanted to do this for years. That's 1620 pages. This too can be broken down to manageable proportions so long as they are regularly and faithfully completed. I've drawn up a reading schedule of 7 pages per day. So the first volume will be done by just after Easter. Both volumes will be completed by some time early August. After that I'll have a rest, I think. 

So, shovel by shovel, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow. By the way, Karl Barth also uses the wheelbarrow as a metaphor for how you tackle the gargantuan task of writing the Church Dogmatics, let alone reading them!

“The angels laugh at old Karl. They laugh at his trying to capture the truth about God in a book on dogmatics. They laugh, because volume follows volume, each thicker than the last, and as they laugh they say to each other: “Look! There he goes with his [wheel]barrow full of volumes on dogmatics.”

I'll check in at Easter and let you know how it goes – and perhaps a few posts with some reflection on what to make of sitting at the feet of the most influential theologian of the 20th Century. 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Comments

3 responses to “Karl Barth, Shovel by Shovel, and Wheelbarrow by Wheelbarrow”

  1. Jason Goroncy avatar
    Jason Goroncy

    Thanks for this post, Jim. It reminded me of this interview with the Australian writer/journalist Leigh Sales, and her exchange with her friend Annabel Crabb:
    I was actually with my friend Annabel Crabb one day and we were filming a little series that we did for the ABC called When I Get a Minute, and when the crew would be positioning lights or moving things around, she would pull out her laptop and start writing on whatever it was that she was working on at the time. And I said to her, ‘Oh, how are you doing this? How are you splitting your head from what we’re shooting and then you writing for like 10 or 15 minutes at a time and then putting it away and then filming and then writing again?’ I said, ‘I could never do that. When I did my book I had to…’
    And Crabb said, ‘Oh, get over yourself’. [Laughter] She said, ‘How do you think you’ll ever write another book if you don’t do it in tiny chunks, like I’m doing it right now? You’ve got two small children, you’ve got a massive job. If you ever want to write something again, this is how you’ll have to do it.’
    https://thegarretpodcast.com/leigh-sales/
    I trust you are well.
    Jason

    Reply
  2. Jason Goroncy avatar
    Jason Goroncy

    Thanks for this post, Jim. It reminded me of this interview with the Australian writer/journalist Leigh Sales, and her exchange with her friend Annabel Crabb:
    I was actually with my friend Annabel Crabb one day and we were filming a little series that we did for the ABC called When I Get a Minute, and when the crew would be positioning lights or moving things around, she would pull out her laptop and start writing on whatever it was that she was working on at the time. And I said to her, ‘Oh, how are you doing this? How are you splitting your head from what we’re shooting and then you writing for like 10 or 15 minutes at a time and then putting it away and then filming and then writing again?’ I said, ‘I could never do that. When I did my book I had to…’
    And Crabb said, ‘Oh, get over yourself’. [Laughter] She said, ‘How do you think you’ll ever write another book if you don’t do it in tiny chunks, like I’m doing it right now? You’ve got two small children, you’ve got a massive job. If you ever want to write something again, this is how you’ll have to do it.’
    https://thegarretpodcast.com/leigh-sales/
    I trust you are well.
    Jason

    Reply
  3. Jason Goroncy avatar
    Jason Goroncy

    Thanks for this post, Jim. It reminded me of this interview with the Australian writer/journalist Leigh Sales, and her exchange with her friend Annabel Crabb:
    I was actually with my friend Annabel Crabb one day and we were filming a little series that we did for the ABC called When I Get a Minute, and when the crew would be positioning lights or moving things around, she would pull out her laptop and start writing on whatever it was that she was working on at the time. And I said to her, ‘Oh, how are you doing this? How are you splitting your head from what we’re shooting and then you writing for like 10 or 15 minutes at a time and then putting it away and then filming and then writing again?’ I said, ‘I could never do that. When I did my book I had to…’
    And Crabb said, ‘Oh, get over yourself’. [Laughter] She said, ‘How do you think you’ll ever write another book if you don’t do it in tiny chunks, like I’m doing it right now? You’ve got two small children, you’ve got a massive job. If you ever want to write something again, this is how you’ll have to do it.’
    https://thegarretpodcast.com/leigh-sales/
    I trust you are well.
    Jason

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Jason Goroncy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts