Living Wittily

Author: admin

  • The fruit of the Spirit is not grumpiness

    Only very occasionally can I be accused of being grumpy.

    My cheerful smiling disposition is evident from most photographs.

    Yesterday I was accused by three people of being grumpy.

    Guilty, my Lord!

    1. Might be because I've lived in four different houses in 12 days.
    2. Might be because I painted two rooms with three coats of paint in 14 hours the day after moving into the house.
    3. Might be because as a lover of routine I ain't got one yet.
    4. Might be that I am missing Sheila who is a major grumpiness cure.
    5. Might be because despite the clock change the weather is still miserable.
    6. Might be because I am becoming a grumpy old man.

    I think it's a combination of 1 to 5. Number 6 is impossible.

    One of my favourite art forms is stained glass. The picture is from Bar-Hill Shared Church in Cambridge and i designed a tapestry of this some years ago. When I feel grumpy an image like this acts like a grumpiness evaporator – it reminds me that God's wonderful world is far too much fun, and has far too much beauty for grumpiness to be anything other than a transient aberration of spirit. Or so I hope. I'll do another blog post on this window – it is an ecumenical treasure.

    Bar-hill-shared-church-02  

  • a liberal education in why Christian apologetics is an ultimately futile project of trying to win an argument.

    Not normal service yet but an improvement on the previous 10 days of sporadic silence. Thanks to all those who sent good wishes on the move. I survived, apart from some creaky shoulders and a body that protests albeit mildly at having to shift endless boxes, apply numerous coats of paint to the room whose colour scheme made the abomination of desolation seem aesthetically pleasing, lay a couple of carpets and reconstruct the study with all books reshelved and in their appointed places.

    The aerobic exercise involved in celing painting (which was also previously coloured in bright pink with a blue one foot border!!) has put me in fine condition for a session of energetic charismatic worship, complete with the requisite arm movements when words like glory, power, praise, honour exalt and other words from the semantic domain of charismatic liturdgy occur in the praise / worship / songs. The swinging motion required to apply a smooth coat of emulsion, and in my case the rising on tip-toe and stretching forward at a dangerously destabilising angle, provided practice in a new repertoire to be used when ever I am singing songs in which passionate expressions of spiritual longing or fulfilment are called for :))

    More seriously, I am now at College and started a new way of working away from home three days a week and working at home two days a week. No idea what this will feel like until it has been road-tested for a while. Meantime, after a hiatus of over a week, I am back in the melee of the Spring semester, preparing teaching and meeting with students, staff meetings and planning, marking and feedback, liaising with colleagues on campus, and generally reminding myself of what it is I do, am and am for!

    This morning spent nearly an hour with a University colleague discussing the connections between Schopenhauer and Richard Dawkins and their shared interest in biology not as science but as philosophy, the furore surrounding Philip Pullman's new book on Jesus and the scoundrel Christ, the capacity of Christianity to turn toxic and embody the opposite of all that Jesus stood for and died for, and the implications of each of these for a church that is so busy trying to work out the meaning of mission that it seems oblivious of its core task – embodying all that Jesus stood for and died for!

    Not sure about how it is for others, but I find such a conversation a liberal education in why Christian apologetics is an ultimately futile project of trying to win an argument. What is needed is more than winning the argument – much more important to win the assent of the heart, to work for the liberation of the spirit, to encourage the renewal of hope, to welcome the dawning of an understanding deeper than the mind but not dismissive of intellect and thought; by which I mean, what is needed is a church that lends credibility to its own message of peace, reconciliation, love as the bottom line, hope and hopefulness as rooted in God's mercy in Christ, and the offer of forgiveness, new beginnings and those gestures of compassionate self-giving that are redemptive and attractive and, finally and persuasively, Christ-like. Not even a Schopenhauer could out-argue a witness less interested in argument than in the integrity of a life lived in consistent faithfulness to the radical demands and gifts of the Gospel. 

     !

      

  • Too many books spoil the wee study?

    Scary thoughts – I have most of my books from my home study fitted comfortably into the new study at Westhill. But I have the same number of books at College – Church History, Theology, Pastoral Theology and Spirituality with miscellaneous other stuff. Not a problem just now – but six years down the line when retirement might just about catch me up – what then? Those who don't understand scoff and see the easy answer as a major literary cull. Oblivious to the terror such vocabulary arouses, insensitive to the passionate attachment of soul to library of books, never occurs to such literary utilitarians that a library isn't an aggregate of disposable units, but an organic collection of people, places, ideas and conversations bound up with personal identity, individual history, human development and prolonged intellectual adventure.

    So what to do? Thinking about it. Open to suggestions – but not suggestions that upset my inner equilibrium which is finely calibrated and depends on the presence of books collectively bonded together into not just a library, but MY library.Don't want to go digital – I love books not just text. Don't want to throw out furniture to make room for more bookcases – though that may well be negotiable, though the person I'll need to negotiate with is no pushover. Don't want to put books in storage, why keep books to hide them away on the off chance you MIGHT read them. I've always wanted books around me as companions I notice, acknowledge and spend time with. However in a previous post or two I did concede that pushed to the place of having to choose, I could reduce my library to manageable proportions. It's just that the reality is likely to be harder than the hypothesis, the empty claim, and the cheap boast! Meantime I'll do a W E Gladstine and work out how to cram maximum books into minimum space.

    Never mind though – as long as I don't retire there won't be a problem 🙂

  • Comment moderation now implemented at Living Wittily

    Unfortunately there have been several unwanted comments posted on Living Wittily. And unfortunately I am not able to check the blog daily at present. Fortunately a couple of good friends alerted me to the problem. So for the time being I have implemented the comment moderation protocol, which means if you comment your comment will only appear once I've seen it.

    I hope in a few weeks when my broadband is set up again to revert to the open forum approach. But for now I want the security of controlling who puts what on the blog. Apologies to all who regularly come by and comment – but responsible bloggers will understand the problem and the reasons for using moderation. And thanks to my friends who let me know there was a problem.

    Once life regains equilibrium I think I'll do a couple of posts on comments, blogging and the difference between good interactive discussion and banal if mischievous nonsense. Or maybe not – the differences are obvious.

  • Update on the relocation process and the spiritual discipline of being patient

    Appearances on this blog will continue to be sporadic till the broadband is connected. Currently I am working on the fruit of the spirit, speiclaising in patience as the blessed dongle takes half an eternity to load the typepad compose page.

    So a quick update.

    We moved into the house on Wednesday and so fare breakages total two pasta plates.

    The removal men were brilliant – plumbed in the washing machine, lifted a couple of carpets we were going to replace.

    Unloaded in two hours.

    In the next 48 hours we redecorated two rooms (three coats to cover the pink and blue ceiling and walls – and had carpets bought and laid in the same 48 hours.

    This means energy levels are depleted and I don't have one of those three pronged things you use with mobile phones which are similarly depleted.

    The neighbours have both acalled in to welcome us and looks like we will have good folk around us.

    The study is right now in process of being reconstructed in its new and smaller room – this simply means choices about whether wall space for pictures is as important as wall space for bookshelves – don't jump to conclusions as to which priority will be prioritised!

    For the rest of the day I will slowly replace the books on the shelves, doing a wee weeding process as I go.

    For now – just off for the half mile walk to the local shopping centre to test drive the coffee shop.

    The blog will return to its daily posting when the broadband is reconnected – could be a week or two thoug – so patience would be a fruit of the spirit I'm not the only one having to cultivate.

    Blessings and shalom.

    .

  • Weaving tapestry, words and worldview

    My experience of the Vadafone mobile broadband is mixed. It gets the job done, but only if you are patient. It takes a couple of minutes to load the typepad to this page – after which it works OK. It will do, but only if i allow it to double as a patience tutor,

    The hiatus between
    moving out of our previous home, and moving in a week later (this Wednesday) has been good as a rest, as reflection, but it does
    nothing to reassure that this move will work, or even that we will like the
    house we will now have to live in! We havn't seen it since we viewed it!!

    So walking by faith isn’t so much a choice,
    as an inevitable result of previous choices. Perhaps taking up tapestry again
    is a way of creating new patterns as I work out from my own mind the
    intricacies and colours of the next stage of life. There is something
    sacramental in the slow, precise working of canvas, the choice and blending of
    colour, the subtle shaping of form using only 45 degree cross stitch, angles
    and tones, canvas grids and colours, intersecting in the woven texture of
    created work whose unity is dependent on the mind that brings them together.

    So at times of major
    life change, and when my own life circumstances need significant attention, I
    revert to a Reflective Journal. My inner world has, as long as I remember, made
    most sense when I use words. So at times of significant change I use words to
    redescribe the world, to weave together images that help make sense of
    experiences that are confusing and disorienting. That's why this morning I was reflecting
    on my taking up tapestry again – I've never completely let it go, but I was
    wondering why it is now something I have returned to with a sense of relief,
    even urgency. And so the image of weaving and tapestry, combined with the
    weaving of words, becomes a way of paying attention to who and where I am.
    Stitches precisely pointed, words crafted to context, images growing on canvas
    and paper – the creative spirit reconfiguring colour and words, shaping the
    outer world as a way of reconfiguring an inner world in transition. 

    For me words are amongst the most precious gifts we have. To be cherished, crafted, used with integrity and ethical wisdom, offered as gifts of care and communion, the fabric of conversation and truth-seeking, a palette of expressions to be mixed into meaning in the construal of inner worlds and the shaping of outer worlds. If all that sounds over-rhetorical, a tad overstated, I'm not arguing. But those are images that help me describe the importance of words in my own approach to God, the world and that inner reality that is me!

    Time I was moved into the new house and with more to do than wax eloquent about weaving, whether tapestry, words or worldview.

    e

  • Novels, and the pleasures of other people’s worlds

    In the bookshop in St Andrews on Saturday.

    Had a book token and a gift token.

    Bought four novels and paid 74 pence.

    Decided not to take a historical novel about Elizabethan martyrs – the blurb said, "enjoyable, bloody and brutish".

    Decided I don't need any more novels about murder, mayhem and maggots.

    Tried to buy a children's book, Klimt and His Cat – I do also read children's books though they have to be a bot different – this one is.

    Did buy an Alexander McCall Smith for Sheila who has become a fan of this undemanding though not unsophisticated writer who seems to think human nature isn't all bleakness, blackness and bloodletting. I happen to believe he is right.

    The one I'm looking forward to reading over the next couple of days, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld – one of those social novels that explores human relationships, politics and how the two inevitably affect each other, for better, for worse and in ways not so easily categorised.

    A favourite writer, Daniel Silva, writes about Israeli intelligence, the new Moscow underworld and the web of power, corrutpion and greed that provides fertile soil for terrorist activity.

    And I've been a fan of Douglas Kennedy ever since I read The Big Picture, and discovered that he is always rewarding as a thoughtful, knowing and sympathetic teller of people's stories as they try to find their way out of whatever life throws at tem – as the blurb says,' he delivers the message that whatever hole you dig yourself into, you're probably not alone.'

    So. Some good reading over the next few days, before the van delivers our stuff to our new house, and the priorities of making home take over from the pleasures of other people's worlds.

  • Not homeless, not home, just here

    Like Geoff I am now road testing one of those dongle things that give internet access from wherever I happen to be. Which at the moment is Crail. Beautiful. Windy. Yesterday sunny, today cloudy.

    Our removal was carried out with great efficiency – one late afternoon, then one half morning, and nearly all our worldly possessions carted off to Aberdeen. We don't get entry to our new house till next Wednesday, so we are legally homeless, but actually living in a really nice house, regenerating our bodies and spirits. By which I mean, well, cooked breakfasts, foot spa baths, ice cream eaten in gale conditions on St Andrews front – complete with sand!- dark chocolate gingers from Thornton's, and various other compensations for a life currently in transition.

    Started doing a celtic tapestry I designed a while ago – a kind of trinitarian them woven into a cruciform shape, and using the liturgical colours – in bright stranded cottons, and with no real idea what it will eventually look like. Therapy – the tighter you are pulling the threads, the more stressed out – I call it the strangled stitch test, and you can tell by the way the canvas is being pulled.

    Not sure how often I can post over the next week or so – but we are both well, looking forward to completion of the move, and if anything bloggable occurs you'll be the first to know……

  • The precious stuff that sits on my desk or is kept safe in the drawers

    Forget money, credit cards, cheque-books, rolex watches (aye, plural), credit busting electronic gadgets. The things that go in the small box in my car are more to be treasured than such vulgar cash-value idols. I do icons, not idols. Not only the painted variety, but those objects that slowly accumulate through a lifetime, and can be gathered into a small box of graced gifts, not so much objets d'art as objets d'amis.

    Like the holding cross placed in my hand by a friend several years ago when life threatened to come clattering in on top of me.

    Like the two beautiful calligraphy sheets, on which Alistair Beattie wrote two poems one that cuts like plough blades into my soul: The Musician, by R S Thomas, and the other that says all I ever want to about prayer, Prayer II by George Herbert.

    Like the cast steel paperweight in the ahpe of a dove, engraved with the text "Live by the Spirit", a gift from a close friend with whom I've shared coffee, tears and laughter.

    Like the caithness glass limited edition paperweight, chosen by me from a fine collection that belonged to one with whom I'd walked a furlong or two of his hard journey.

    Like the beech wood bowl, a gift from the staff and children of Beechwood School who were sorry to see me leave Aberdeen, and who I hope will be happy to see me back again!

    Like several special cards from birthdays past, that happened to say things I needed to read, or said things I just liked having said about me – yes, affirmation does change the way the world looks, and these cards are hard evidence of kindness.

    Like the fountain pen presented to me (at my request) by the Aberdeen congregation I served for 17 years, and with whom Sheila and Iwill soon resume our journey.

    Like the leather folder Sheila bought for me in 1975 – sized A5, tooled simply, and now coloured in a deep matured brown leather, the beauty of the object providing a place for important words written and spoken.

    My old rotary wind up watch, – old because bought for my 21st Birthday – condemned by the watchmaker as unfixable, but following some uneducated taps and shakes, has since gone in its old reliable way.

    These and a number of other personal treasures don't go on any lorry. They are occasional sacraments, memories held in the hand, gentle nudges in the direction of gratitude. And on arrival at our new house, and when the study is set up, they will each resume their place, and their role as God's love through created things. 

  • Flitting – the approval of upheaval for removal to our new home

    This is the week of the flitting. Now that all is said and all is nearly done, and the papers signed and the removal van booked for Thursday, we are just about packed up and ready to head for Westhill, Aberdeen. A previous post explained what we were about and why. You can read it over here in the February 10 blog post. 

    Moving-house You do these things with mixed feelings, maybe more so because in my first 15 years I was in 13 houses and the school count also hit double figures. Since leaving home I've lived in Scotstoun, High Blantyre, Stirling, Partick, Paisley, Aberdeen (2 houses) and Paisley again and about to be Aberdeen again. By my count that means I've lived in 21 houses and am moving to my 22nd. The reasons for my identity crisis, inferiority complex, manifest insecurity, reserved and retiring nature, competitive disposition and general readiness to adapt to chronic change as life's norm, are surely not unrelated to such habits of migration.

    I now sit in a dismantled study, boxes of books towering both sides of me; bubble wrapped pictures stacked against the walls now bare; the computer still connected but only for a couple more days. Then this blog is going to experience a first – a lengthy hiatus interrupted only by those occasions when I can get access to the internet. So those who are regular callers, you need to be patient, understanding and supportive, and normal service will return. For now sporadic updates, harrowing cries de coeur, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth alternating with whoops of delight, discovery or relief, will have to suffice to let you know I is still alive.

    20089-a-view-of-the-valley-on-the-way-to-the-alpenrose-hutte-breithlahner-austria The worrying thing is, the boxes of books represent less than half my library – my College study has the same again and more, but they are staying put for a long while yet. Biblical stuff and some of the hefty theology / dogmatics, along with most of the poetry, biography and literature go up the road. Church history, theology, pastoral studies, philosophy, ethics, spirituality and other miscellanea are in the College study. The inevitable frustration will be wanting the books that always seem to be in the other place just when you want them. Mind you, these are my idiosyncratic worries – Sheila is much more to the point  and wants to know where the pictures will be safe, where to put the kitchen stuff so it will be easily accessible at the other end, could I check I know how to plumb in the washing machine, and could I make sure the removers bring mobile wardrobes to transport clothes to the other end where they will still be wearable. Right enough – who needs the Church Dogmatics when you can't find the kettle, or the washing machine is spraying the walls, or the clothes are a fankled mess of tortured textile? Well… all I can say is if the washing machine does spray the walls, I want to know the whereabouts of my set of Barth to make sure it isn't remotely within range. And as for the kettle, no need for either/or choices, however much attracted to dialectics – find the blessed thing, make the coffee and settle down with CD IV.1 and enjoy the mountain scenery of theology on an alpine scale.