Author: admin

I like this call to worship……

The following is taken from an order of service for First Baptist Church of Ithaca from July 7. I like the call to worship – its realism, biblical echoes and the prayer that says most of what most of us want to say most of the time.

And Moses said, "I am slow of speech and slow of tongue…"

All: But God sent him anyway

Jeremiah said "I am just a boy…"

All: But God spoke through him anyway

mary was perplexed by the angel's visit

All: But God still invited her to give birth to Jesus

God invites us to understand that we have gifts and we are needed;

whether old or young; tired or energetic; quick or slow;

whoever we are, however we are.

All: We hear your call O God. We have come.

PRAYER

Holy One we come to you, for we need healing.

We come to you for we need teaching.

We come to you for we need leading.

As we gather; as we sing; as we pray; as we listen; as we speak.

May we open ourselves to your balm, your blessing, your word,

Amen

The painting is a detail from Michaelangelo's Sistine Ceiling.

20 July 2013
Early Morning Ornitheology

I went out for a walk early this morning along to the village of Skene. We are enjoying a long hot spell in Scotland, which is in itself cause for thanksgiving, rejoicing, praise and feeling so much better about the world! Amongst the miraculous everyday accomplishments exhibited around us every day is the acrobatic low flying demonstrations by swallows skimming over the fields and any water that happens to be around. Seeing them reminded me of the poet of the Psalms noticing that even the swallow finds a nest in God's house.

A bit further along I came across a teenage pied wagtail. Not quite mature, and its markings not fully defined. B ut there it was sitting on a hay roll getting its face ready for the day.

It wasn't all that fussed about this part time wildlife paparazzi in a pink T shirt invading its privacy so I took a couple more

Then over the road I heard a birdong I've known all my life – a yellowhammer in full flow. It was at the highest point of the hedge showing off. My wee Sony optical zoom x10 gave this photo which isn't exactly National geographic but it'll do me – what a lovely moment when sound, sunshine, spectacular colour and many a memory all came together.

As that other ornitheologian said, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in
barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more
valuable than they?" Not a bad start to my day, on holiday and at home and enjoying all this.

19 July 2013
Fortingall, the Oldest Tree in Europe, and the Wisdom of a Life Well Lived.

On the recent jaunt to Kinloch Rannoch we diverted down to Fortingall to see Europe's oldest living tree, the Fortingall Yew. The trunk used to be 52 feet in girth and the tree has been around for 3,000 to 5,000 years. It sits at the end of a long country road that runs through a glen and the night we went to see it was sunlit, silent and still. We stood for a while wondering at the long human story witnessed by a tree that was there at least since the Bronze Age. The Exodus was still a thousand years away when this seed germinated; it was already two thousand years old when Jesus called Nathanael from his contemplative siesta under his mature fig tree; and around two thousand five hundred years in the growing by the time Columba's coracle bobbed up on Scottish shores.

The path leading to the tree is like a time line with several engraved slabs reminding those who walk therein of the human achievements and changes over centuries. And I guess standing on a sunny evening under the shade of a tree that has witnessed so much of the human story you are left to wonder, and ponder, at the miracle of human lives and the improbability verging on impossibility of the coming and going of the human story. I found this particular stone deeply moving in its simple witness to the humanising and civilising power of knowledge, learning, understanding and wisdom. In the celebration of wisdom in Proverbs 3 such life applied scholarship is described in an arboreal metaphor "She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her."

This ancient tree has outlasted around 70 human lifetimes of three-score years and ten. That longevity and 'still thereness' kind of puts the rest of us in our place. The connection between the tree with deep and ancient roots, human scholarship and accumulated wisdom, and the way we live responsibly now, came as a gentle nudge on a summer evening, in an old graveyard,at the end of a Scottish glen, looking at a winding path that led to this ancient witness to life as gift. And perhaps wisdom is knowing what to do with the unique privilege that is our own, individual, unique, precious life.

18 July 2013
Yehudi Menuhin, Music Making, Peace Making and Human Greatness

"The violin, through the serene clarity of its song,helps to keep our
bearings in the storm, as a light in the night, a compass in the
tempest, it shows us a way to a haven of sincerity and respect."Yehudi Menuhin

On a summer holiday in the 1970's my holiday read was Yehudi Menuhin's autobiography, Unfinished Journey. I had recently been given my first Classical LP, from Sheila, Brahms Violin Concerto. There are occasions in life when a new experience becomes a sort of epiphany, a glimpse of horizons never imagined, a listening that re-attune our ears to the beauty of sound, emotional responses we can neither control nor would ever want to, and a conviction of mind immediately recognised as life-changing – my first hearing of the Brahms Violin Concerto was each of these.

Yesterday on Classic FM I heard the newest CD of Brahms Violin Concerto, the finale, which still lifts me beyond wherever I am to a more hopeful place, just as the second movement combines for me sense of compassionate presence that both cares and teaches to care. Mind you, lest this becomes too much, the first bars of that second movement also remind me of the first line of Nice One Cyril, nice one Son!

Amongst the important legacies Yehudi Menuhin lefts the world was his passionate belief that music was a midwife of peace, a humanising surrender of self interest to something higher, a gift from God with the power to express our highest hopes, deepest tragedies, most far reaching hopes and most all embracing loves.

Menuhin's faith in music, and use of his own influence through his music, was given memorable and forthright expression in 1991 when he was honoured by Israel and addressed the Knessett in his acceptance speech:

This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of
life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very
last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the
awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It
is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a
code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and
achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet
deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling
amongst them.

There is greatness in such words, in such outspoken critique of his own people, and in such aspirations for a world made more hospitable, safe and humane. The man who played to the survivors of Belsen, and who absorbed hostile criticism for playing under Furtwangler in Berlin after World War II, pointing out that Furtwangler had remained in Germany throughout the entire Nazi period and had helped a number of Jewish people to escape capture, such a man spoke with a different kind of moral authority. Human greatness is an elusive and ambiguous value – but for me persitent peacemaking, joyful music making and fearless defence of the humanity of others are amongst the more obvious criteria.

17 July 2013
God isn’t a mountain, a partridge or a flower arranger.

Yesterday I was at one of my favourite Baptist places in the North East. I wanted to show some slides of our holiday as part of the all age worship and thought I'd introduce it by asking someone to tell me the meaning of the word metaphor. Thought we'd do some metaphorical theology at Sunday School level. One brave late primary grammarian gave me just the right answer: "It's something that's a bit like something else, but not the same as it." Oh yes – couldn't have said it better myself.

Then we looked at photos of Scheihallion – immovable and always there, a bit like God, but not the same as.

Next we looked at a red legged partridge with its chicks – solicitous, gathering them, protecting them from danger, a bit like God, that red legged partridge, but not the same as.

Finally a photo of nothing but flowers, hundreds of them – fragile, beautiful, transient, a bit like human beings, but not the same as – though God who is always there, and who cares for and comes close to, makes them beautiful, so how much more will he care for human beings who are worth so much more.

This metaphorical theology thing works OK so long as we remember God isn't a mountain, a partridge or a flower arranger. But God is rather permanent, eternally so; God is love that risks hurt for love of human beings, in Christ demonstrably so; and God is an artistic genius who creates beauty just for the sake of it, inexhaustibly so. And Gos is so much more.

The red legged partridge knows how to lead its chicks into camouflage – how many can you see in the photo? Clever things partridges – and that too is a bit like God!!!

15 July 2013
Jan Van Ruysbroek and Trinitarian Theology – Who? On What?

Years ago I began to read Evelyn Underhill's works on mysticism, and eventually read most of her published writing, her early Mysticism and her late Worship in the Nisbet Library of Constructive Theology, and then including retreat addresses, letters and essays. She reads as one writing from anothet time, now – but why should we be surprised, or think that in itself a disqualification of her as a spiritual writer still worth time and effort to study. Amongst the writers she introduced me to was Jan Van Ruysbroeck, whose name itself is likely to be unfamiliar to any but those interested in medieval mysticism. I must say I never followed up on Ruysbroeck after I'd moved on from reading Underhill. But recently he reappeared over my horizon.

I am doing some wider reading around Trinitarian theology including An Introduction to the Trinity by Declan Marmion and Rik Van Nieuwenhove. This is a very good book which for an introduction is theologically substantial and wide in its reach. There is a section on Ruysbroeck which I found fascinating, intriguing and in turns attractive and unsettling. Van Nieuwenhove referred to his own monograph, Jan Van Ruusbroec, Mystical Theologian of the Trinity and I've just started reading it. This is a study that seeks to redefine the essence of mysticism in terms of human transformation rather than immediate experience of God. I want to take some time to read carefully, assimilate quite unfamiliar ideas and weigh them against Scripture, tradition and experience, and do so in a way that is thoughtful, critically appreciative, humbly receptive and spiritually attentive. In other words to greet new ideas with courtesy, respect and intellectual modesty.

I will report back – for now I am enjoying reading an exposition of how spiritual theology if it is to be lived transformatively must be rooted in Trinitarian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity is diminished if the primary focus is on an exercise in speculative philosophy, or our best energies are expended on rational constructions and constantly revised defences of fixed ideas. The immanent Trinity overflows in an eternal love, the sovereign fredom of God, creating, entering and engaging with all that is as it has come into being through that same eternal creative purposes of the Triune God revealed in Christ through the Spirit.

Far from being a study of abstraction, Trinitarian theology invites openness to transformation as we are caught up into the life of the Father the Sone and the Holy Spirit, to share in that eternal fellowship of self-giving love, inflowing in returning joy, outflowing in constant gift. Ruysbroeck is a Trinitarian theologian for whom mysticism is nothing less than our awareness of conscious surrender to the transforming, renewing and cleansing grace of the God who calls us into relationships of intimacy, sacrifice and joy in God.

14 July 2013
The Return of the Prodigal Book and the Love of My Life

Three posts ago I reported the loss of Denise Levertov's little gem of a book, The Stream and the Saphhire. It went missing on holiday and I was intending to replace it. But my book has returned. It appeared on my desk while I was away at College. I'd like to suggest this was a miracle, an act of gracious providence, God in His mercy making good heartfelt loss, evidence that in the life of faith God intervenes on a daily basis with blessings unlooked for. Now I believe all of these possibilities.

The book which I left on a sun lounge had been picked up by Sheila and put for safe-keeping in her bag – I did say it was a small book. On second thoughts, Sheila found and retrieved my book, graciously looked after it, returned it and made good my heartfelt loss, and presented me with an unlooked for blessing. So my miracle, God's gracious providence, God's mercy in looking after me, and daily unlooked for blessings all coincide in Sheila.

12 July 2013
Warning from P T Forsyth: “It is a dangerous thing to work at your own holiness…”

Living in Aberdeen it is incumbent to be aware of the theological minds that have graced this city. Two of them come together in 1970, in a wee book called P T Forsyth:Per Crucem ad Lucem, written by the Professor of New Testament and former Master of Christ's College, A M Hunter. What makes this brief study of Forsyth so good is the coincidence of minds and sympathy of spirit of two men who could be called liberal evangelicals. Separated by two or three generations they were theologians of the New Testament Gospel, and Hunter had clearly found a kindred heart in the writings of Forsyth.

At one point Hunter builds boldly on Forsyth's insistence that growth in holiness is God's work not ours. "The witness of the Spirit in our hearts is 'Christ's perpetual interpretation of his own work as gospel. The Spirit lights the Bible, leads the church, anoints the ministry, and all by a constant rejuvenation of the gospel and its power to create, criticize and create anew".

Hunter goes on: "Sanctification is not self-culture….Paul did not consecrate himself to his great work. He obeyed a call and found his sanctification – his growth in grace – in the pursuit of his ministry. So we too are sanctified when we are on our Saviour's business. Growth in grace comes not by working at it but by passing ever more deeply into self-forgetfulness – into the grace, the cross and the service of Christ."

And for added emphasis here is Forsyth again, sounding like one of the magisterial Puritans he admired, Thomas Goodwin: "Seek first for the Kingdom and sanctification will be added; care for Christ and he will take care of your soul; sail by the Cross and you will sail into holiness."

Aye, those Aberdeen theologians of the Gospel knew what, and Who, they were talking about. And they were way too wise as pastoral theologians, and shrewd as psychologists to tolerate the me, me, me self-help spirituality that is often implicated in our programmatic activism as we try to make happen what in the end, and the beginning, is grace, gift and mercy.

12 July 2013
A Trinitarian Theology of Art and an Eschatology of Aesthetics.

Now I have to say at the start of this post – it won't appeal to everyone's theological interests; it's a bit obscure; you may end up wondering "what's the point, Jim"? So if you're not into reflection on the connections between art and Trinitarian theology, aesthetics and dogmatics, human creativity and contingency on the one hand and Divine creativity and eschatological telos on the other (I speak anthropomorphically!), then if you've had enough already, click elsewhere now!

What I have in mind touches on a number of strategically placed theological flying buttresses: imago dei, creation, providence, the Triune nature of God and the incarnation. I got to thinking all this when reading an essay entitled Art: A Trinitarian Imperative by Brian Horne. The main argument is that there is that in human nature and existence which is compelled to create, to express, to articulate in sound or vision, in music, word, image or object, to bring into existence that which is born within. The image of God in human being and experience is expressive; and this for two reasons.

First, the incarnate Word is the revelation of the kenotic outgoing love, enfleshed in a human life, made material, a true representation of the imago dei. The human artist exhibits the imago dei, and echoes the materiality of the incarnation in the musical notation of the concerto, the accumulated precision of brush strokes, the toilsomely shaped sculpture, the organisation of letters and words into meanings articulated, communicated and more or less comprehended. Secondly, and this is Horne's point, such a process, expressive of the divine radiance, is the human will responding freely to the movement of the Holy Spirit.' In other words art is an inner impetus towards creation originating in the human imaging of God, but that impetus and its creative expression in aesthetic articulation is the work of the Spirit of God, the creative, formative power of a love that brings into being.

This is an exciting line of thought for me. two of my main interests in theology are exploring the tradition of Christian Trinitarian thought, and seeking connections between art and theology. Horne is arguing that the divine mystery of the Trinity involves the radical immanence of the Holy Spirit, the ultimate transcendence of the Father, and 'the union of these two modes of being in the expressive form of the Incarnate Son. And from that Trinitarian standpoint he concludes that the Holy Spirit and human inspiration towards expressive art, are deeply and intentionally related in the essential created and creative nature of human beings. Quoting Von Balthasar whose pneumatology affirms the role of the Spirit as the on who mediates the glory of God, "Since the Spirit Himself is the glorification of the love between thre Father and the Son, wherein God's true glory disclosed itself to us, it is likewise only he who can bring about glorification in the world."

The idea that human art and expressiveness is inspired by, has its origins in the Holy Spirit, and echoes the divine creative impulse towards that which is loved, an urgent love which dwells in and flows from the eternal communion of the Triune God, is a powerful theological argument for artistic expression, skilled manufacture, and the sanctification of the impulse to create that which is beautiful, true and good. Horne finishes this intriguing essay:

"Since self-expressive energy has been revealed to us as the very structure of the life of God, it cannot be an activity which is optional in the life of creatures who are made in that image: it is a Trinitarian imperative. We may not choose not to create if we are to be human."

In answer to the imagined question at the start of the post, "That's my point, Jim". The Triune God of love, in whose image we are created, by whose love we are redeemed, and by whose Spirit we live and move and have our being, empowers and enables that which, in the words of a dear friend, words she uses often to end her prayers, 'Lord, bless us and make us for blessing, and wholeness and joy" Amen to that sister!

The photos on this post were taken in Amsterdam and Vienna. Van Gogh's bedroom is for me one of the most poignant and joyful portrayals of home, not only as place, but as safe space and comfortable place. The butterfly, that fragile glory of life that images transformation and resurrection, is a photo I waited a long time to take, because butterflies are not the most obliging models of God's created masterpieces. The close-up of Raphael's Madonna of the Meadows tries to capture, and all too inadequately, the most beautiful face I have seen on canvas. And the statue of Mozart in Vienna, overlooking the musical flower bed, gave me a photo that in its own quirky way celebrates a musician whose music is one of the aesthetic wonders of the world, and will be, according to one of my best friends, 'the music played in heaven.' I can go with that – Mozart's music, oh and maybe some Tallis, and Beethoven, and….well, heaven's a big place and time isn't a problem, let's just wait and see, and hear, and touch, and smell, and all to our taste.

11 July 2013
Denise Levertov and the Poetry of Justice and Intercession

To lose one book is careless; to lose two is culpable; to lose two books by the same author is unpardonable; to lose two books by Denise Levertov is expensive – because I will replace them!

Conversations with Denise Levertov was left on a train on the way back from and External Examiners Board. The Stream and the Sapphire, her collected religious poetry is now available for whoever follows us into the accommodation where we recently had a holiday. (Photo taken on said holiday) If they pick it up and read it, then they will discover one of the sharpest most compassionate spirits in contemporary poetry; they will hear a voice that beckons them into deeper water, that urges them to look and see a bigger sky, that tugs at those nameless longings another reat writer described as God putting eternity in our hearts. So I've just re-ordered it and rather than writing the abandoned copy off, I pray a blessing on the book and whoever reads it. It has been a balm in Gilead for me, and a pocket companion who seldom fails to say the right thing.

Here's a quotation I wrote down in a wee journal I kept a few holidays ago – it encouraged me to write prayers of intercession for worship that both saw, and felt and touched the hurts and wounds of the world:

A poetry articulating the dreads and horrors of our time is necessary in
order to make readers understand what is happening, really understand
it, not just know about it but feel it: and should be accompanied by a
willingness on the part of those who write it to take additional action
towards stopping the great miseries which they record.

"additional action
towards stopping the great miseries which they record" – a definition of and justification for intercessory prayer, perhaps?

9 July 2013