Delivery
Customarily, I rise early and spend
a couple of hours in my study before
washing and shaving. One morning
last week, the postman catching me
in night attire, I explained I had been
up for ages, rhyming away. Today,
exercising, I was perspiring freely
when the bell rang: he eyed me
impassively, then went on his way
murmuring, "Heavy work, this poetry!"
Stewart Conn, The Breakfast Room, Bloodaxe, 2010, p.33
Poetry, theology, philosophy – all three ways of writing, speaking and spending time. Not everyone would call such reflective thinking, intellectual exercise, and mental discipline, work. So I like the postman's ironic scepticism, or innocent wonderment at the thought that hard thought and careful writing breaks sweat! And I'm sympathetic to a poet who does a couple of hours before the working day starts – Some of my best hours are early morning too – that's when I slowly make my way through the big books, several pages at a time. It's an interesting thought that 5 pages a day can give access to 1,825 pages – which is a lot of poetry, theology, philosophy or whatever else takes our interest. Six three hundred page volumes – do that for a few years and you become dead erudite so you do!
My current reading is a book that needs that slow, attentive listening. Mark McIntosh is a theologian who understands the connection between the study of theology and the encounter the theologian is likely to have with the Subject of her study. Divine teaching. An Introduction to Christian Theology (Blackwell: 2008), takes the view that in studying theology, if the mind and spirit are open to it, the theologian is taught by the One who is the subject of study. It's a fine book, and one that offers an innovative and inviting approach to theological reflection.
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