Category: living wittily

Well the jaunt to St Deiniol's as always didn't go exactly to plan. Yes, I did read chunks of Balentine on Job – but only a few and I decided I prefer the slow piece by piece approach. No I didn't get very far with Psalm 119 as I was sidetracked by Hermeneutics of Doctrine by Tony Thiselton. This is tough going but I'm learning just how much I don't know – and hoping that reading this will fill some hiatuses in my hermeneutical up to dateness. More immediately rewarding was Andrew Purves, Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition, which is a good concise survey of several ancient treatments of pastoral theology and how the values and theological commitments of the past remain relevant today – albeit with considerable adjustment for changed context and knowledge.n

But as usual I found the people as interesting as the books. And as varied. And as much a matter of taste. But I made two new friends – Peter from Arizona (pictured below) and Steve from Cardiff (pictured on the right). You know you need friends around when a retired Canon asks "What's a Baptist doing in an Anglo-Catholic library?" Could have said giving it some credibility – or – I'm here to do some personal witnessing – or take the more diplomatic route of murmuring that Baptists also honour divine learning, as Gladstone the Library's founder knew very well!

So I appreciated the friendship, conversation and shared learning Steve, Peter and I enjoyed at the meal table, the farm shop (where we had Italian coffee and Welsh tea bread), and over post dinner tea. Steve is well into a PhD on inter religious dialogue and wrestling with hermeneutics and religuous discourse in the public sphere, via Habermas et al. He's responsible for church based learning and Practical Theology at St Michael's College Cardiff and is Vice Principal; he was at St Deiniol's to get his head round some of the hard stuff in one of his PhD chapters. So I learned a bit more about Habermas.

Peter is doing research on the early 18th century non-jurors which got us into a conversation about Susanna Wesley who knew a thing or two about non-juring! Peter's great enthusiasm is Schleiermacher – he is a native German speaker and his area of expertise is 19th Century rational theology.This
photo is from Peter's profile on the University website – the moustache
was gone, so had the cowboy tie, by the time we met – but he tells me he and his wife have three horses in the garage / stable!

One of the joys of email is that it enables such friendships to go on being nourished by conversation and the stimulus of learning and sharing in that fellowship we call Christian scholarship.
 

 For years I've had my own way of marking books I read. This is not vandalism or graffiti practice. It's a record of a conversation, minutes of a meeting of minds. And in many books I've read there is the index at the back – not the one the publisher or writer compiled – but the one I compiled. The more significant ones are linked to a key index.

Where there's an "S" in the margin, near it the underlined word indicates subject; an arrow ( > ) indicates something that needs more thinking about; a vertical line that stretches to a few lines is a pasage I'll read again – and again probably. A "T", along with a biblical reference links the page to whichever biblical text is written in the margin. A "?" means I've a question for the writer, but I always add question marks tentatively – always good to assume that the writer knows what they're talking about, and even if I remain unconvinced, I've thought about it.

Today reading in a couple of places, here are three pencil marked extracts. The first an important reminder of life balance. The middle one is self-explanatory and one of those unsettling examples of serendipity cos I only read this page this morning. The last an example of Balentine's astute realism and psychological honesty about what suffering can do to people's thoughts about God:

We have sought truth, and sometimes perhaps found it.
But have we had fun?
(Benjamin Jowett, amongst other things the great translator of Plato)

The books that matter are those we have wrestled with, like Jacob and the angel, those we have questioned and argued with and been persuaded by. The best way to create a proper agonsitic encounter with any text is to mark it up.
(An Open Book, Michael Dirda, Senior Editor, Washington Post Book World)

Job's call for God to remember the sad state of his life is not an appeal for God to be more present with him, for in his judgement divine presence equates with human misery. What he seeks instead is for God to be more absent.
(Sam Balentine, Job, page 134).

For the record, I use a pencil when taking minutes of a meeting with a book. Recently the reloadable BIC gives a sharp fine line – nothing if not fussy, me.

About to reverse the car in Braehead car park, but two people from the car next to ours were standing behind exchanging views in a frank and robust manner. I waited patiently as is my wont, but though both were animated and moving back and forward, they didn't move away from behind the car – which made it difficult to reverse.

Eventually as I moved the car slowly and almost but not quite imperceptibly backwards (had it been imperceptibly they wouldn't have noticed, would they?), they eventually noticed my desire to leave the vicinitypreceded by the necessary reversing manoeuvre. My window was down and I could hear there was some disagreement about whether their car was locked. He tried the doors – they were locked. She tried the boot – it too was locked.  But who locked it – and when? Huh?

At which point the wife of the driver delivered the almost unanswerable put-down:
"Well, ah didnae see it!"

Followed by the answer which I suspect came from long practice:
"Ah well! It couldnae have happened then, eh?"

Two thoughts occur as a comment on this mini-episode of soap opera – one human and humorous (same semantic ancestors) – the other a wee bit more, well, metaphysical.

 The husband's reply made me wonder if he was thinking of the variation on the old epistemological question – If a man expresses an opinion in a forest, and there is no woman to contradict him, is he still wrong?
OR to balance the gender roles and avoid stereotypes – If a woman expresses an opinion in a forest, and there is no man to contradict her, is she still wrong?

Whoever was right or wrong, they were still going at it – 20 feet apart, when we were leaving the car-park.

The more serious and intriguing question arises from how we know what we know – and how we can establish who is right or wrong if two people have different perceptions of things. If 'ah didnae see it' – could it have happened?

Possibly, but how would I know? Well, if you told me and I trusted your word. Uh Huh – but what if it's an argument and it matters to both protagonists who wins said argument? Well then it depends on whether my desire to hear the truth is more important to me than loudly proving you wrong.

There's something important lurking in this line of thought that might help to deal with those breakdowns in communication, which become breakdown in trust, and then breakdown in relationship, which slides into those irretrievable breakdowns that inflict the kinds of hurt that can't be easily sorted. Why is it, that on certain occasions not easily predicted, it becomes so important to be right, and for the other to be so demonstrably wrong they have to admit it? And such due deference feeding the ego of the one who wins a low grade argument by losing something more valuable! Such episodes tend to have a lengthy and potentially toxic half life.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Years ago now I read Esther De Waal’s book Seeking God. It is an attractively written introduction to the Rule of St Benedict and introduced me to the central values of the Rule; prayer, manual work and study, or heart, hands and head, which is shorthand for a holistic approach to daily life. Ever since the Rule of Benedict has been a source of check and balance in my own occasional life audits – but has also been a regular quiet conversation partner. Balance is another important Benedictine virtue, practised long before our post-modern overworked culture discovered the urgent need of a life-work balance. I’m still intending to do some posts on thin books – and amongst the thin books whose importance is out of all proportion to size is this introduction – to an even thinner book – the Rule of Benedict which through the great monastic movements, decisively shaped the culture and civilisation of the Christian West.

In the mid 1980’s I subscribed for some years to the Journal Cistercian Quarterly. It  contained many articles on monastic spirituality which then and since informed pastoral practice and personal maturing in Christ, and from a perspective so different from my own Evangelical viewpoint. The new monasticism is another of those eccretions emerging from the post-modern (or post-post-modern?) search into the disciplines and practices of the past – Brian Maclaren’s latest book is the latest to do this, with the usual blurb making it sound as if this is significantly NEW! Kathleen Norris, Esther De Waal, Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton have been diagnosing modern rootlessness and spiritual malnourishment going back half a century to merton’s Contemplative Prayer and Seeds of Contemplation, and prescribing a return to the practices that have been shown to shape community, instil stability, nurture Christian practice, and draw human personality towards maturity in Christ.

Among lessons learned from Cistercian Quarterly, which I took for the best part of a decade, are the following

• the significance of silence as an intentional disposition, to be encountered as both absence of external noise and presence of inner peace – an important spiritual constraint for a preacher, and talker!

• Stability as a willingness to settle in and accompany a community, so that relationships deepen, challenges are not evaded, and longevity of ministry is valued – one of the underlying principles of a life lived against pervasive short-termism.
• lectio divina as a form of reading, rooted in Scripture and branching into the great mustard tree of the Christian traditions where it is possible to find shelter and food – for a Baptist, the recognition that love of the Bible as transformative Word, is not, despite often inflated and uninformed claims, the monopoly of Evangelicals
• hospitality as an openness to people, other people and people who are other, but also hospitality as an openness to God, and to the Spirit of truth who doesn’t always leave our over-tidy minds as ordered as he finds it! – a predisposition to welcome, to greet the stranger as Christ, says most of what is essential in pastoral care.

The Cistercian Quarterly at that time was administered from Caldey Island. I still have a handwritten letter from the Brother who dealt with my subscription (and who was clearly intrigued by a Baptist minister with Benedictine tendencies), with kind words about something I had written for the Expository Times.

All of this came back to me when I read this morning that the monks of Caldey Abbey, on the Island ,have run out of patience with the slow speed of their dial-up internet connection. So they’ve installed fast-speed Broadband. The image of monks clicking impatiently, and getting into a spiritual stew about slow dial-up connection, made me smile. The image of monastic life as ascetic, pre-industrial, judiciously Luddite, sold on discomfort, is neither fair nor true. Online Lectio Divina, email as a way of maintaining silence while communicating with each other, surfing the world while enclosed in cloisters – the Lord bless them in their newfound freedoms! But the life they inhabit (by the way the use of that word as a recently introduced way of describing Christian character – “inhabiting virtues” from Alistair MacIntyre – carries rich semantic options – dwelling, dwelling place, monks clothing,) – anyway, the life they inhabit is an important witness to our overbusy, technologically addicted, fast-speed culture. And if Broadband contributes to the nurture and dissemination of such a witness to slowness, patience, and the virtues of balanced living, then Father Daniel the Abbott, may find his faith in the blessings of Broadband justified!  Benedictine Broadband – I love it! Benedictine Broadband – now that’s living wittily!

Been to Aberdeen today where I was preaching at the church where I was previously pastor. As always, welcome, laughter, sharing of much experience, a good number of new faces though some of those I know best were on holiday. Caught up in the afternoon with others for lunch, then afternoon tea with two of our closest friends in Aberdeen, laced with conversation about mysticism, inter-faith dialogue, what Jesus meant by life abundant, Hans Kung, and much catching up on each of our families.

Left to come home around 6.00p.m. when the day started taking unexpected turns. First, 10 miles south of Aberdeen a sudden noise as if a jet was overtaking us – but it was a puncture and the road noise on the non slip surface made it sound as if the rear axle was about to come off. A dangerous part of fast road so we nursed the car into a narrow road entrance. Dressed in the Sunday clothes unpacked spare wheel, jack and wheel brace. Except said blessed wheel brace was a useless piece of cheap soft metal that slipped off the wheel nuts as soon as pressure was applied. So phoned the AA. The cavalry came – and with a two foot lever and a wheel brace the nuts came off – no idea how this could have been done with the equipment supplied by the car manufacturer.

By this time it’s 8 o’clock we are 140 miles from home, hungry but once again mobile. We stopped 15 miles further on at The Gang Faur and Fair Waur, an old fashioned, nae nonsense transport cafe which serves food as if calories were their speciality – which they are. Just after I ordered the filled roll I saw it. The baked rice pudding – with the dark nutmeg skin. Decided I’d see how I felt after my fried egg roll. Surprisingly I was still interested so I went back – filled roll and pudding, a balanced meal. The plateful was, how can I explain?  You know how nouvelle cuisine is little portions arranged on a large plate; this was nae messin cuisine, large plate and large helping. I staggered to the table with the prize, and spent ten minutes proving that even if faith can’t move mountains – if it’s made of rice pudding, I can.

On the road home, listening to Classic FM, Elgar’s Love’s Greeting, written for his wife. Hearing this beautiful piano and violin, looking over the mearns to the hills, and then the background outline of the Perth hills, with a setting sun, pink coral laced clouds, against a sky as clear as blue crystal, I felt one of those surges of peace and spiritual at homeness – such as happens only after the renewal of rich friendships, the frustration of a puncture, the inner glow of rice pudding, and against the background of a sky that is an artist or photographer’s dream, – and all shared with Sheila ( who by the way had an equally challenging pudding – rhubarb crumble and custard – but I finished mine!)

My time with the English Speaking wing of the Baptist Union of
Wales at their annual Assembly was a great experience of cross fertilisation.
Ideas, new visions, evolving strategy, long perduring problems (why do we
insist on calling problems ‘challenges’, as if that made them easier to
solve!), tough decisions, balanced realism along with equally balanced
imaginative and hopeful faith – all these and many conversations with
ministers, church leaders and delegates.

My own ministry was warmly appreciated, something
that no amount of experience should ever take for granted. I’ve always found
such affirmation humbling, and important in supporting ministry by necessary
encouragement. For myself I greatly enjoyed developing some themes I’ve thought
about and wanted to preach.

The new President is Peter Dewi Richards whose
Presidential address was a crucial contribution in the life of English speaking
Welsh Baptists. Peter was for 15 years General Secretary and knows the
churches, the associations and many, many of the ministers and church leaders.
In his address he touched prophetically on such issues as the importance of
ever closer collaboration between the English and Welsh speaking Baptists; the
necessity for denominational distinctives to enrich and foster wider and more
generous ecumenical co-operation in a common bearing witness to Jesus and the
Gospel; and the Gospel imperative for Christians to be in conversation with
other faiths in a dialogue aimed at deeper more sympathetic understanding of
each other, and dialogue aimed at social and moral co-operation on matters of
national and global interest. The result was an address that spoke to Welsh
Baptist Experience locally, nationally and globally – and delivered with long
earned authority, unmistakable Gospel passion, and generosity of mind and heart
that was deeply moving to witness. I’ve never heard a better address to a
denominational assembly by a President, and it was a privilege to be there.

Following the Assembly we went over to the
vicinity of Oxford to share a
brief holiday with family who were in the area. This meant a visit to the place
where all Bibliophiles eventually come – Blackwell’s. Bought only three books –
two of them on my to get list anyway, the other a spur of the moment purchase
that now seems less must-have than it did before I paid for it. I’ll read it,
and say something about it – if it’s worth it! But much of the three days was spent in family conversation, hilarity and a determined effort to sample Tea Rooms and Pubs as places of refreshment and necessary replenishment. Thus Queens Tea Room in Stow on the Wold gets first vote for a superb, delicious, light gluten free double-decker Victoria sponge for one of our party that was devoured as very manna from heaven – I had the walnut and coffee cake accompanied by Cinnamon Chai tea – in the Cotswolds. The Swan is a pub by the riverside – only recently opened after flood damage that immersed the interior in 4 feet of local river – the only time in the history of a village dating back hundreds of years. The landlord a cheerful, philosophically inclined recently retired rock musician who reckoned the flood merely hastened the refurbishing process. The food was superb – apart from Cotswold Lamb done absolutely right, may I mention the open Plum Tatin with Pecan and Maple Ice cream – the plums caramelised with the blowtorch and scorched enough to make them bitter-sweet. One of those desserts you don’t want to finish and can’t wait to eat. .

Browsing through the recent issues of First Things (The March 2008 Issue), I came across this interestingly no nonsense observation on what the Lord requires of us today:

It’s always an encouragement to see a bishop speak truth to twaddle.
The National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry chose as the theme
for its meeting in San Antonio “Paradigmatic Changes in Hispanic
Ministry.” The archbishop of that fair city, Jose Gomez, said in his
address to the council, “The Scriptures don’t talk much about paradigm
change. Instead, the Bible talks about kairos—the time of
decision. . . . . The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only real paradigm
that matters. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom is at hand. The
decision each of us has to make every day is this: Will we repent and
believe? Will we continue our daily conversion to Christ? Will we try
every day to more and more conform our lives to Christ and to his
­teaching?”

I couldn’t say it better.

When I started blogging it was an experiment in thinking, writing and conversation all in one. I do some of my best thinking with a pencil, pen or keyboard – in any case through writing. This isn’t for everyone, and plenty of folk think better than I do without all the in between stuff. But writing involves a process of word selection, sentence construction, self-expression through the discipline of articulation, and is an important way in which I theologise, ruminate, laugh at myself, pin down experience long enough to have a better look at it.When this is done with a pencil, pen, paper in the absence of a keyboard, it’s also a way of making sure at least some of the significant stuff that flows through my stream of consciousness doesn’t float away unobserved, unregarded and unappreciated.

A number of folk comment either on the blog or by email – and some who know me pick up conversation around the themes and idiosyncracies of Living Wittily. I’d never put myself in the same universe of spirituality, theological fervour, lucid expression or obsessive writing as Richard Baxter – but he said of his own humungous output, ‘I was but a pen in God’s hand’. My own claim is that ‘I am but two index fingers prodding a keyboard, to my heart’s content’; whatever blessing it might otherwise produce for those who happen by Living Wittily is just another reason to prod on. The portrait of Thomas More links to the words at the head of my blog page, because I am still persuaded that living faithfully for Christ, thinking Christianly and looking on the world with a sense of the purposefulness and mercy of God, requires of us that we “look humanely forth on human life”, and recognise that we are called to “serve God wittily in the tangle of our minds”. Christian wisdom might be another term for such intentional effort to know, to understand, and to live faithfully after Christ.

Not tired of blogging – just tired. End of term marking and QA processes work within tight deadlines, and a number of other commitments are unavoidable at this time of year and seem to come in waves of several at a time. So – not complaining, just explaining uncharacteristic levels of literary silence.

Friday started at 5.a.m. and included a 6.15 am flight to Gatwick, two examination boards at Spurgeon's, then the plane back at 6.30 – except an emergency landing by another plane delayed take-off for another hour while we were on the plane waiting to taxi.

Saturday at the Ordination and Induction of one of our students in bonnie Bo'ness. One of those occasions when many things come together – a person's sense of vocation, years of preparation, anticipation and hard application, the affirmation of a call from a local congregation and the confirmation of that call by the wider fellowship of our Baptist communities in Scotland – and this in the context of worship, prayer and celebration of the Gospel and the Christ who calls us to follow after him, faithfully and even recklessly.

Sunday worshipped at our own church, spent time talking with good folk whose ways of dealing with what comes at them in life go far to explaining why anyone would want to be a pastor. To love as we've been loved, to strengthen through encouragement the weak knees and uphold through prayer the feeble arms, as people of faith just get on with it – and when it gets too much, well many a time the grace that is sufficient comes to us through those other fellow travellers who come alongside us and walk awhile.

Monday, back to College and a staff meeting to catch up with where we each are, what's on our agendas, and what still needs doing. Another week with a diary that is ridiculously optimistic about energy, time and presence all being able to be held in an effective and productive balance. But lunch was shared with the Eejits, a group of friends who try not to take ourselves too seriously, but who in conversation and shared story take the Gospel and the Church with both seriousness and we hope, a creative if at times critical playfulness.

Tuesday morning till Thursday late evening it's meetings – I'm trying to develop a theology, even a spirituality, of meetings. Agendas, minutes, apologies, business arising, financial statements, reports, feedback analyses, candidate papers, publicity and promotional concerns – all of that admin paraphernalia shouldn't be allowed to disguise the realities behind the at times necessary tedium. These realities are people – students and their families, staff and their families, colleagues in the University and at the Baptist Union, churches looking for relevant, faithful and available ministries, and a Gospel worthy of our hardest work, our best ideas, our clearest thinking, and well worth any amount of tedium that enables the coming of the kingdom – watching a seed germinate and grow in real time isn't the most instantly gratifying pastime.

But wait. If you have faith…..a grain of mustard seed…..eventually birds building nests in branches. Sometimes in the committee (that greatly abused structure for human conversation and decisions) it helps to envisage a mustard seed. In fact, maybe this week, at the various committees, along with the pens, the stationery, the mint imperials, the bottled water, there should be, placed on the top of the agenda paper, a mustard seed – a small subversive reminder that we don't know everything now, don't see all that can be, and our words and dreams may have a significance beyond the limitations of our too easily bored attention span. Anyway I hope so. In fact, if I have faith as a grain of mustard seed……