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The morning was so beautiful, frosty, misty, pastel sky, sunlight that began as white and turned slowly to a crystal clear light and blue sky. I put on U2, Beautiful Day and heard it with the clarity that comes from two new hearing aids!

By mid morning it was warm at the back door and Smudge had the sense to lie on the garden table and soak up some vitamin D.

I came out with my camera and the first photo she co-operated but by the time I wanted one or two more her mood changed. Here is photo 1, with her indulging my intrusion. The request for more photo-shots was greeted by the face on the second photo! Phot 3 is Smudge's opin ion of camera in your face!

That's why I love cats – their eyes let you know what they're thinking – inscrutable sometimes, utterly to the point at other times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm a Celebrity….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't push it…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look I've done the celebrity bit…get out of here!

 

Aid money could go to defence. That's a headline on BBC News Online. Now I can think of a number of moral arguments which demonstrate the ethical minefield (excuse the inappropriate metaphor) the Prime Minister proposes to walk across. And I could quote a few sayings of the OT prophets who had a thing or two to say about the collision of military hardware and works of mercy, or the hubris of the powerful protecting the interests of economics at the cost of humane politics.

But it's late. And this is just a wee blog with a few hundred readers. So I guess there's little point in going into either a long reasoned argument or and even longer gratifying rant. So I'll content myself with the words of Isaiah 58. Perchance these could be offered as some questions for Prime Ministers Question Time…

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness^[a] will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

.

Does anyone out there still listen to John Michael Talbot? I first bought a vinyl album yonks ago called The Quiet, and loved the quiet instrumental music played at contemplative pace, and with some beautiful melodies. Today I've been having a sabbatical couple of hours on a Sunday, listening to Our Blessing Cup: Songs for Liturgical Celebrations. The tracks are mainly Psalms set to music and several of them do what good music should do. But just what is it good music should do?

In deference to the post-modern sensitivities about prescribing criteria for everyone else, here's what good music does for me, whether it should or not!

As sound and stimulus from  beyond my own mind, it interrupts my preoccupations, and breaks the self-generated agendas of the habitually active brain. Yes there is music that fulfils the role of background sound, but I mean music that simply insists on a listener. Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and Brahms' Violin Concerto, and Christian Forshaw's Sanctuary CD do this for me.

Music is a mood changer. Good music coaxes me out of my complacency, persuades me to unclench hands that hold too tightly to my worries, and lifts the heart above the limited horizons that obscure the hopes and possibilities there to be imagined, felt and sought with a trusting heart. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Allegri's Miserere, John Denver's Windsong Album, and Our Blessing Cup with John Michael Talbot have often rescued me.

Good music is like the smile on the face of a friend, something that evokes joy and reminds of life's blessings so often tied to those faces we know, and who recognise us. The face of a friend seen unexpecedly in a crowd, or sought for companionship or support, however familiar, remains a transformative encounter with embodied welcome. Those melodies, lyrics, and songs that have woven themselves into our view of the world, ourselves and the meaning of love, are irreplaceable and without them we would be less than who we are.

This is soul music, those cadences and harmonies that like the Spirit brooding over the chaos of the deeps, speaks a new order and purpose into us, those sounds and tones, notes and chords which re-shape and re-direct our hearts desires and longings. The coincidence of music and our own story creates a unique fusion of memory, emotional capital and new possibility each time we hear again that which has changed us. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto slow movement, Tallis' Spem in Alium, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms (Psalm 2,23), Mary Chapin Carpenter's 'Jubilee', The Seekers version of 'Blowin in the Wind', Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, are just a few of those that can re-arrange the furniture of the heart for me. 

All of which comes from sitting here listening to a Franciscan monk singing his heart out.

On a lighter note – I had no idea why he was singing 'Forever relaxing'!

He was singing 'Forever will I sing', but ran the words together and I was sure he was singing about heaven as an armchair with a coffee, a freshly baked scone with butter and jam, and a good book….but there you go, instead I have to sing for eternity! Lord help us all 🙂

The photo is of tonight's sunset from our front window – taken by Aileen on her phone – I was too busy listneing to Father Talbot to notice!.

 

Forver will I sing = forever relaxing!?

 

I like pancakes so much that it would be a seriously formative exercise in self denial if after tonight I gave up pancakes for Lent. My favourite bought ones are Sainsbury's, the large ones. My preference are home made as long as the pancake maker knows what they are doing:)

Tonight I will have pancakes with savoury (crispy bacon and maple syrup) and then sweet with chocolate sauce or maybe ice cream and peaches..

TO KEEP A TRUE LENT.

by Robert Herrick

IS this a fast, to keep

                The larder lean?

                            And clean

From fat of veals and sheep?

Is it to quit the dish

                Of flesh, yet still

                            To fill

The platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an hour,

                Or ragg’d to go,

                            Or show

A downcast look and sour?

No ;  ‘tis a fast to dole

                Thy sheaf of wheat,

                            And meat,

Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,

                From old debate

                            And hate;

To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent ;

                To starve thy sin,

                            Not bin ;

And that’s to keep thy Lent.

Robert Herrick isn't anthologised much except for a few of his devotional poems. This one echoes the more ancient poet Isaiah, in chapter 58 who gives a comprehensive agenda for any discussion about the meaning, fruitfulness and social transformation made possible by a Lent truly kept. Made me wonder what a national Lenten period would achieve? What would a Lent in which we gave up unethical food production look like in a country where Food Banks are the fastest growing charity and £1.5 billion of food is wasted annually, and in which the scandal of processed food produces its next chapter of consumer phobias and species indifferent meat labelling? Or if everyone above the average wage donated a week's salary to the NHS? If that seems impossibly daft, how about a national mauratorium for 40 days on all language that is oppressive, discriminatory or fear mongering?

There is a foolishness and unreality about such suggestions. But maybe our laughter at the bizarre and naive nature of such suggestions betrays a skeptical realism and lack of moral imagination so that the status quo is so privileged we cannot even dream of a more ethical alternative. Every year I tediously point out that Lent is a time for taking up as well as giving up. This year maybe I could do both with the one change – how about giving up on habituated cynicism and taking up a patient naivete? How about giving up a reality manacled by amoral realpolitik and taking up dreams which give freedom to the moral imagination? How about me, just me, deciding that on behalf of the nation, I will give up negative diminishing discourse and take up positive edifying words of encouragement, affirmation, welcome, comfort, hopefulness, peacemaking, relation building, kindness, mercy, and truth spoken in love?

Pancake Tuesday is about recognising the gifts of life, and understanding that they are not all shared equally; that justice and mercy and freedom are not only core values of the Kingdom of God, but criteria of the good life lived Godward. As Jesus said, not the things that go into the mouth defile it, but the things that come out. Not the food we eat, but the words we speak. A true lent would mean replacing many of our habits of speech, parts of our discourse being converted, so that what comes out of the mouth doesn't defile, but are promises we keep, the truth we tell, the lives we enhance, the injustices we challenge, the love we articulate, and the compassion to which we give voice.

And if what goes in does not defile, then bring on the pancakes, the maple syrup, the ice cream and peaches, the crispy bacon, and hot chocolate, but make sure the equivalent expense is put aside to do what Nehemiah said, "remember the poor".

"Judge not that you be not judged…" Like many of Jesus' sayings it's hard to see how to live that word consistently, constantly and faithfully. It isn't just that we all enjoy the moral high ground, the smug viewpoint from being right where we can look down on the moral failures or personal faults of others. And yes we like to see people get there come-uppance when the thin ice they were skating on gives way, or the web of manipulation they weave ensnares them in their own deceit of themselves and others.

More than that, moral judgement and ethical distinctions, acknowledgement of the good and naming evil for what it is, are all part of the human experience of building a framework within which we can live with relative safety, with some hope of community and as a fundamental orientation of life that enables us to live in peace and co-operation. Law, morality and social structures presuppose our capacity as humans to recognise good, to define and guard against evil, to learn and adapt to that infinite number of circumstances, relationships and choices which make up the moral life of a person, a community and a culture.

But I think I know what Jesus was getting at. As often as not Jesus saw self-righteousness as every bit as toxic as the self-despair of the guilty. Another rabbinic warning echoed by Paul, "Let him who thinks he stands safely take heed lest he fall…". One of the features of our own culture is the self-righteous tone of much news reporting of other people's wrong. Once someone is found guilty it's right that social disapproval, comment on consequences, evaluation of moral character, are recorded as parts of the ethical and judicial process which underpin a country's values, norms and legal system. Or so it seems to me.

Until I reflect on the current case of Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce, and I hear the word of Jesus again, "Judge not that you be not judged…." And I plead guilty. I do judge that the concatenation of self serving choices freely made by these two people, over 10 years, have been in a moral and social sense, disgraceful. I take the word to mean lacking in grace, toxic of goodness, corrupting of character, arrogantly dismissive of those standards of behaviour rightly expected of ordinary folk, and especially of those who seek the trust and service of public office. The escalation from speeding offence to perverting the course of justice and all out personal war is an intertesting example of the cumulative effect of wrong turnings – which is to get lost in the maze of our own making.

Perhaps Jesus' words are not mere prohibition but dire warning. Judge if you must, but you'll be judged yourself. Condemn the liar and you condemn yourself every time you give the truth a body swerve. Mock the one caught speeding and condemn yourself when you rationalise your own in a hurry approach to life and justify depressing the accelerator further. It's hard to be morally clear eyed about others and a bit vague about our own failures – sawdust and plank come to mind. And yet. As this play goes into its second act, a second jury considers the motives and choices, the facts and the testimonies, the truths and evasions which run parallel to the corrosion of a relationship to the point where betrayal by the one leads to vengeance from the other, and all this publicly stated.

And you know, I feel as much compassion as anger, but I do feel both. Dishonesty and deceit are not exhausted in deceitful acts. They are manifestations of something deeper in the character, betraying fault-lines in integrity, and a default menu programmed towards self-interest made more powerful by repeated usage. Lies engender lies, and trust dissolves in acid of our own making.

"Judge not that you be not judged…" Maybe those words of Jesus are about cultivating self-knowledge, a right estimate of our own character, what is routinely called today, self-awareness. It is also I think a call to moral discernment, a way of looking at the world and at others, that is realistic not cyncical, with compassion as well as judgement, and that recognises the tragic reality of the human condition.

 

 

One of the most important Christian truths that should encourage both compassion and moral judgement is the doctrine of sin. That disruptive, subversive, deceitful reality that insinuates itself into hearts and structures, corrodes relationships and societies, and is of such lethal consequence that outraged Holiness responds with outrageous love, so that we see as P T Forsyth saw so clearly, "Justice, the true and only mercy…."

 

 

 

The Scottish Psalms and Paraphrases were written out of a deep loam of spiritual passion and theological assurance. That theology could be stern, rendered inflexible by doctrinal rectitude, narrowed to the constraints of minds severely logical and tolerant mainly of Calvinism in its least tolerant forms. And pushed too far theological assurances and dogmatic certainty could lead to spiritual anxiety and an inner uncertainty about personal salvation and the demeanour of God towards this particular, and particularly undeserving sinner.

But out of such theology there sometimes grew a spirituality and experience of God that often enough was a corrective to such fear of the face of God, and that could be like sunshine on a heather covered hillside. This Psalm. paraphrased in sometimes quaint syntax, is one of the treasures of Scottish devotion. For myself, I like a bit of quaintness to balance the banality and predictably prosaic translations of the Psalms in most modern translations. Bennachie in the background of the photo, taken in late autumn, can be seen from our house, and from almost anywhere in much of rural Aberdeenshire. It isn't a mountain, it's a hill, and when I look to it, I understand why the versifiers of this old Scottish paraphrase got it so right. When my life is hard and the wind blows in my face, and my eyes are cast down, when inner horizons are constrained and shadowed by low lying clouds of sadness, when the path is slippery from moss and rain on hard rocks and the cumulative weariness of the long walk weighs like clothing soaked in Scottish drizzle, "I look to the hills from whence doth come mine aid", and pray that "henceforth my going out and in God keep forever will."

Psalm 121,A Song of degrees.

 

1I to the hills will lift mine eyes, from whence doth come mine aid. 2My safety cometh from the Lord, who heav’n and earth hath made.

3Thy foot he’ll not let slide, nor will he slumber that thee keeps. 4Behold, he that keeps Israel, he slumbers not, nor sleeps.

5The Lord thee keeps, the Lord thy shade on thy right hand doth stay: 6The moon by night thee shall not smite, nor yet the sun by day.

 

⁷The Lord shall keep thy soul; he shall

preserve thee from all ill.

⁸Henceforth thy going out and in

God keep for ever will.

A prayer for Dry, Parched, Cold, Feeble People!

Lord
how much juice you can squeeze from a single grape.

How
much water you can draw from a single well.

How
great a flame you can kindle from a tiny spark.

How
great a tree you can grow from a tiny seed

My
soul is so dry that by itself it cannot pray;

Yet
you can squeeze from it the juice of a thousand prayers.

My
soul is so parched that by itself it cannot love;

Yet
you can draw from it boundless love for you and for my neighbour.

My
soul is so cold that by itself it has no joy;

Yet
you can light the fire of heavenly joy within me.

My
soul is so feeble that by itself it has no faith;

Yet
by your power my faith grows to a great height.

Thank
you for prayer, for love, for joy, for faith;

Let
me always be prayerful, loving, joyful, faithful.

(Guigo the Carthusian, died 1188.)

 

Every year when there's snow I enjoy the snow covered coffee table – it has about 9 inches of snow on top. I wanted to lift it into the living room snow and all, and sit there with a coffee while my photo was taken. This was not seen as a good idea and was not countenanced by the House Management. Pity. Might still do it if I'm in by myself. Anyway I rejoice in gently fallen snow that settles in carefully considered peacefulness, an accumulation of crystals of unique specificity, acting together in an informal architecture that is beautiful to contemplate.

I mean contemplate. I've sat looking at the snow several times this week when I've been home, letting its peacefulness slowly penetrate a mind at times like a mental tumble drier, allowing the cold to penetrate and heighten awareness of heartbeat and rhythm, grateful for the dazzle of reflected sunlight, and gazing at the soft edged shapes that invite touch, but which I refuse to spoil by doing so. 

The spirituality of snow would be a good title for a thin book exploring the theological significance of snow – miraculously maintained snow flake uniqueness yet transience; accumulated whiteness that dazzles to make us see; covering a multitude of sins yet also giving new shape to the landscape; and the capacity of snow to contain in crystallised geometry the water of life. And the latent opportunities for fun, snowballs, snowpeople (snowman is gender exclusive), sledging and skiing and snowboarding.

Such a book might be entitled after Job 38:22  "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow". By the way that verse provided the title idea of Elizabeth Goudge's autobiograpy "The Joy of the Snow". It is a strange, beautifully writtten, gently interrogative account of her upbringing and writing career. 

The photo below was taken of Smudge enjoying apres-ski hospitality.

 

The time-changing revelation of God’s love comes to us not in the form
of a doctrinal missive, but as the Incarnate Word, expressed not as an
inanimate form or lifeless concept, but as a living, breathing speaking,
acting, feeling, thinking person.  The only way to comprehend this
subject is from the perspective of encounter – to behold the glory of
the flesh-becoming Word, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

Judith A Diehl, Review of Paul Anderson, The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel, (Fortress, 2012).

I know. I cheated. TGwo sentences. But Diehl's point is too important to truncate it.