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The following Quotation is from here, the web page of Prof. Kathryn Tanner. Her work is on the radical edge of theology, by which I mean she explores the theological issues raised by human existence as we experience it in a world that is "savagely individualist", economically destabilised, increasingly fragmented and in which the public and global image of religion is, for entire communities, disfigured and discredited from within. Her theology goes to the roots of such problems, and to the roots of Christian faith as a resource for repairing the world.

"Enlightenment challenges to the intellectual credibility of religious
ideas can no longer be taken for granted as the starting point for
theological work now that theologians facing far more pressing worries
than academic respectability have gained their voices here at home and
around the globe."

"Theologians are now primarily called to
provide, not a theoretical argument for Christianity’s plausibility, but
an account of how Christianity can be part of the solution, rather than
simply part of the problem, on matters of great human moment that make a
life-and-death difference to people, especially the poor and the
oppressed."

" I will incline mine ear……"

He delivers me from all my fears…. (Psalm 34.4)

"in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up" (Psalm 5.3 KJV)

"How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell in  unity."

I talk a lot.

     Teaching.

          Preaching.

               Committes.

                    Conversations.

                         On  the phone.

                               In the coffee queue.

As Merton said, "Words are the sounds that interrupt my silence."

In Christian discipleship, much emphasis is put today on doing, acting, performing, embodying. And yes there is a kind of passivity that is either laziness or boredom with this whole Christian thing. If you've never felt it you're lucky. It isn't loss of love so much as loss of vision, energy and inward motive which together add up to desire for God.

So I welcome the wise words of Philip Toynbee in his unjustly forgotten, even if dated Journal, Part of a Journey.

"To silence the mind is not enough. it has to be a listening silence. Very hard to get there; harder still to stay there."

Yes that's true. And it may be that the word discipleship has become a legalistic doing word, an abstract noun given content by action. Whereas to be a disciple is describing word, a statement of being, a follower, one who has made a commitment in to a relationship.

And relationships need time, communication, and the deepest relationships, communion. A listening silence pays the other the courtesy of attention, hearing and response – all of which are born in silence. 

In the beginning was the Word….all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made…

When I consider the heavens, the work of your hands….what are human beings that you care for them, mortal people that you keep them in mind?

The new images from the Herschel telescope mirror, 3.5 metres in diameter.

This image reminded me of the work of the late Rebecca Elson. I wrote about her in an earlier post here. I quoted the following poem, written by Elson, a brilliant astro-physicist, a deeply thoughtful human being, and one who, suffering a terminal cancer, explored her own mortality with courage, honesty and a deep longing for more.

Let there Always be Light (Searching for Dark Matter)

For this we go out dark nights, searching
For the dimmest stars,
For signs of unseen things:

To weigh us down.
To stop the universe
From rushing on and on:

Into its own beyond
Till it exhausts itself and lies down cold,
Its last star going out.

Whatever they turn out to be,
Let there be swarms of them,
Enough for immortality,
Always a star where we can warm ourselves.

Let there be enough to bring it back
From its own edges,
To bring us all so close we ignite
The bright spark of resurrection.

I find few things more moving than those moments when human beings, and perhaps most of all pure scientists, who recognise mortality as both the given limits of life, and yet hold to a deeper trust that there is that which enables such limits to be transcended by a power and creativity beyond our ken….

And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.

Fresco painted by the Swedish artist, Bo Beskow, illuminated within the Quiet Room at UN Headquarters, New York. 

"This is a room devoted to peace

and those who are giving  their

lives for peace. It is a room of quiet

where only thoughts should speak."

(Dag Hammarskjold)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

So far as it depends on you, live at peace with all people.

Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of
us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To
build a world of justice, we must be just. (Dag Hammarskjold)

When was the theme of peace,

        in its length and breadth,

                  and height and depth,

                          last on the agenda of your local church meeting

                                  as an essential missional question for followers of Jesus?

On the road up the Cairn o' Mount this intrepid tree seemed to be hanging on for dear life. Its angle of repose has been shaped by years of windswept exposure, and roots more likely spread outwards than plunging deeply. No other trees are near it. How it got there, how it stays there, part of the accidental landscaping of a Scottish high level moor. I'm going to try for another photo of it in the summer – that might be some time away yet! I love trees.

Curved resilience

leaning away from wind chill;

but after snow, Spring.

"The Human Other"

We must, in short,

descend into detail,

past the misleading tags,

past the metaphysical types,

past the empty similarities

to grasp firmly the essential character

of not only the various cultures

but the various sorts of individuals

within each culture,

if we wish

to encounter humanity

face to face."

I came across this as footnote 210 on page 139, in Graham Buxton's excellent Creation, The Trinity and Pastoral Ministry. Imaging the Perichoretic God. The quote is from Clifford Geertz the sociologist, in his book The Interpretation of Cultures. Typed like that it reads more as a poem than a footnote.

The photo can be found here on a site that is a marvellous celebration of culture, difference and otherness and the diverse richness of the varied beauty of the human face and the human family. The expression "face to face", happily a non-jargon description of cultural encounter, has so much potential for understanding, compassion, celebration and the shared enjoyment of God's creation.