Now and again I find something in the Oxfam bookshop that requires to be bought! In the years I've been going there I've bought a first edition Pieta, by the poet R S Thomas, since passed on to another of his devoted readers. The days of such finds are rare now, but when it happens it's hard not to feel 'It was meant!'
Last year one of my College teachers died. We had been good friends all those years, and in recent years lived near enough each other to be able to meet and enjoy many a conversation about history, theology, poetry and a whole lot more.
A couple of years ago I knew from one of our conversations that he was enthused about a hard to get book, and ridiculously expensive new. It turned up in the Oxfam shop, seriously reduced and I bought it and gave it to him. Such exchanges of shared enthusiasms are amongst the most cherished joys of friendships like that.
Then there was this older and much cheaper book lurking at the back. Let me introduce it. In the months leading up to the Second World War, Archbishop William Temple wrote one of the classic interpretations of the Gospel of John, modestly titled, Readings in John's Gospel. For £1, I replaced the volume I used to have years ago, a chunky well produced paperback by MacMillan Publishers, which I had also given to a friend who liked it so much it became a gift.
The book is dated, the language identifiably mid-twentieth Century and the voice that of an Anglican Archbishop, doing his best to be accessible without short-changing one of the most profound writings in world literature. He succeeded admirably. At least I think so.
A book by an Anglican Archbishop 90 years on. Dated? Predating serial revolutions in Johannine scholarship? No matter. This is a study of the Fourth Gospel by a scholar who unhesitatingly confesses himself, to borrow Jesus words, "a disciple in the kingdom of heaven…like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”
This is my second time working through this old, dated gem of a book, whose author's main purpose was always to provide spiritual nourishment and food for thought for those hungry for truth, and thirsting for a refreshment of faith.
By the way, the top photo is from a recent visit to the philosophy section of our Oxfam Book Shop. I'm intrigued and smilingly approving of their catalogue system. Those who know anything about philosophy know that Immanuel Kant is "the big yin".
Not this time! Our national treasure of a comedian, Billy Connolly, known as "The Big Yin" sits there in all the brash colours that have been his trademark self-announcement. And it may well be that there is as much guidance on how to live live well in the thoughts of the Clydeside comedian, as there is in the metaphysical machinations of the sage of Königsberg!
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