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Last few days have been interesting as people have engaged in some conversation about diversity versus division, and the importance of distinctive traditions over and against the overall Christian tradition within which Christians stand. Over at Blethers Chris has been taking her own thoughts deeper into her own traditional territory, and with the usual commonsense caution about whether the church can now afford the luxury of diversification. There are dire predictions for the future of most denominations in Scotland, and past patterns of alignment may not survive the pressures of decline, marginalised influence, muted voice, unattractive ideas in a changed marketplace, and the sheer indifference of most Scottish people to the things Christians get all worked up about.

Happy to keep this conversation going if there are other viewpoints to be heard. Meanwhile there is marking to be done so the blog gets pushed down the urgent list to somewhere near maybe and perhaps if there's time!

I am a Baptist, which doesn't make me any better than any other Christian seeking to live faithfully for Christ within their own tradition. Nor does it guarantee that my theology is any more securely right or doctrinally orthodox than other Christian expressions of faith. And my spirituality, though grown in Baptist soil, is in fact a veritable cottage garden of colours and varieties planted from my own tradition and transplanted from others, and a mixture of overgrown abundance and well controlled tidiness. Nor does being a Baptist commit me to rubbishing, or challenging or choosing to be ignorant of other Christian traditions, expressions and ways of being the Church of Jesus Christ.

No, being a Baptist is an exercise in persuasive humility, acknowledging our limitations but also commending the peculiar perspectives we bring to Christian life and practice. Being a Baptist compels me to ask questions about the relations of church and state; to uphold religious liberty for all; to affirm the nature of faith as a personal response to Jesus that isn't only about what I believe, but has transformative power over character and patterns of behaviour; it compels also an embracing of life-shaping Gospel values such as peacemaking, reconciliation, community building and compassionate service.

Baptist identity is moving to the centre of our denominational thinking. That's why I am writing the disclaimers above. There is all the difference in the world between a denomination so insecure that it bangs on about its own rightness; and a denomination that values who it is and was called to be under Christ, and doesn't have to undervalue other traditions to do so. Where all this will take us I don't know. For myself, I long for a rediscovery of Christian existence shaped by the core Baptist affirmation that "The Lord Jesus Christ our God and Saviour is the sole and absolute Authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures". When the Sermon on the Mount has the same purchase on our thinking and living as Paul's Romans; when the parables are as life-shaping as the epistles; when the example and teaching, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus are seen as the treasured truths of a faith that lives only by that name, Jesus Christ. If that is secured, most other things are too.

There are important people in our world who don't get all the rewards of big salary, career prospects, noticed by the so called movers and shakers, often don't even get noticed. So today is noticing day. One of them is the woman who cleans our College. The great thing about the College being on the campus is the interaction with a whole slice of human life the churches seldom if ever get near, or go near, or it seems at times, want to. At one of the cafes, in the library, along the corridors, up the High Street and random places in between all these, there are folk just getting on with their lives, and in their work helping us all get on with ours.

So our cleaning person ( we use gender neutral as the default discourse here 🙂 is here before me and I get in a wee tad early myself. We take time to chat and laugh and complain and grump, then she gets on with making the world cleaner and I get on with making the world…..well, making the world what?

This cleaner isn't content with the hoover, the jay-cloth and the mop. She washes our mugs; she puts on the kettle; she makes sure there's milk in the fridge cos she knows theologians are a bit otherworldly, and though they may demythologise the land of milk and honey, they soon discover the benefits of a land (or at least a fridge) where at least there is non-mythological milk – provided by the grace and goodness of someone else.

Ecclesiasticus has this wonderful litany of praise for workers – and at the end, when the ploughman and the blacksmith, the carpenter and the metalworker, the potter and the vine dresser, have all been commended for their part in the shaping and making of the world, there are the lovely lines: "All these maintain the fabric of the world, and their prayers are in the work of their hands." Quite so. And that clean mug every morning, the boiled kettle, the conversation that sets the world right, and the milk in  the fridge – tell me they aint sacraments…..

Yesterday I wrote about the durable, faithful Love of God. It would be way too easy to sentimentalise the love of God, unintentionally reduce it to indulgent complacency, describe it with fatal inaccuracy as if it were a celestial flavour of niceness, or mistake it for an anodyne affection lacking the pain of passionate longing. Some of the greatest theology ever written struggles and strains within the limits of meaning to say what the love of God is, or is not. It's an area where I don't want to be dogmatic, but often end up being so! Some of the greatest religious poetry has also explored the ranges of of far distant meaning, or ransacked all the available semantic domains, or has continuously conceived conceited concepts…. 

(I know, just let my own wee conceit pass without comment:)

So when I discover a few lines of prose or poetry that backs up my own dogmatic tendencies, or subverts my equally dogmatic certainties, I copy it, think about it, interrogate it, – even let it interrogate me. One such attempted definition has been in my commonplace book ever since I read it in a poetry anthology years ago. Over the years it has broken down into the diverse butv fertile compost out of which grows my theological life and thought. I share it not because it is the last word, but because it is at least the first word.

Love ever gives, forgive, outlives,

And ever stands with open hands.

And while it lives, it gives.

For this is love's prerogative:

To give – and give – and give.

John Oxenham

I've been doing a lot of thinking about prayer recently. Truth is, I've been doing a lot of praying recently. No. I hope I'm not turning into one of those spiritual show-offs Jesus had a dig at. There's nothing all that worthy or praiseworthy about doing a bit more praying than usual. Mind you it depends how you define prayer.

Driving in the car and looking across at the Mearns Hills at sunrise, sky and mountain playing out a visual symphony of God's beauty

listening to Lesley Garrett singing the Celtic prayer "Deep Peace of the running wave to you" at a volume that is just this side of what I think the sopranos in the heavenly choir might reach

jumping on a trampoline with an enthusiastically joyful young friend whose skill on the bounce is way beyond me, and not sure whether I'm praying for safety, strength or energy to go on enjoying it, but realising too that I can now see over a neighbour's high hedge in defiance of my unaided height

hearing a student talk about the gains and changes experienced in her two years in College, and sharing that with the College community as the gift of encouragement it surely is

unexpectedly meeting a friend at Baxter's Aucheterarder, out for a day trip and attacking a very large strawberry tart with a relish that made us both forget how hard life has become for her

These and much more are times of prayer without ever having been planned as such. They are moments of recognition; interruptions, even eruptions of grace into ordinary life; intimations of God's presence that are quiet, yet unmistakably fluent with significance.

But I mean more than that. A number of special people in my life are having to walk a hard road just now. Big decisions that will affect future plans; health crises that affect them or those they love; hurts and wounds that diminish the spirit and need gentle, strong, patient and faithful companionship to recover a sense of life's worth-whileness; uncertainty and long term worry about job, life-chances and coping with a world that becomes daily less humane; anxiety about family as parents grow older, more vulnerable; elderly folk, like my strawberry tart connoiseur above, living bravely with diminishing freedom and capacity.

It isn't always easy to know what to pray for each of those people whose lives enrich ours and whose hard times we willingly share.
So as I pray, I sometimes use my holding cross, a gift from a friend, and the hand clasped around it becomes something less than words, and yet more than words.
Other times I hold a small heavy pewter dove in flight, inscribed "Live by the Spirit", another treasured gift from a friend which invariably lifts the heart to trust again to the God of new possibilities. And the Rublev Icon above, a masterpiece of theological imagination, drawing me into the circle of love and mutual recognition that is the life of the Triune God. Because whatever else I pray for these my friends, I pray that they may know the grace of Christ, the love of God and the companionship of the Spirit.

And so as I pray for these my friends, I walk with them on their hard road. And because I care for them, their journey becomes my hard road too. And yet. Walking together it becomes clear that the shared journey means we are fellow travellers, and at different times we each walk the hard path – and we give and receive, love and support, pray and care, for each other. I think it's the way God meant it to be – because in the economics of grace-filled friendship, we can never give more than we receive. The blessing is in the giving, and in the receiving, and maybe that's what intercessory prayer really is. The practical, actual, living accompaniment of others and finding that in the exchanges of loving action, even in the dark terrain, God is present, and we are drawn into that circle and cycle of generosity we call grace.

Love ever gives, forgives,
outlives:

And ever stands with open hands.

And while it lives. It gives.

For this is love's prerogative:

To give–and give–and give.

After a conversation with a very patient and courteous support team worker,somewhere on the other side of the world, my broadband is now live and I can get back to doing the things that have been hard to do these past weeks. Email, blog, research, browsing, and the many other time saving and time wasting ways of being online.

From the start I have wanted this blog to be updated and maintained on an almost daily basis, so that regular callers and new visitors are given something to think about, smile about, maybe even get passionate about. The hiatus has been frustrating and I hope over the next few weeks to get back into good habits. Strangely I can't say I have lots of ideas that have accumulated over those weeks – probably because I tend to enjoy the spontaneous rather than the scheduled.

Meantime, thanks to those who kept faith, kept in touch, and trusted my promises to return to literary ways as soon as possible.

After 5 weeks of intermittent posting, when Living Wittily has had its longest interruptions by far, I have discovered our new postman has beautiful feet. He brings good news. My start up pack for Broadband has glided through the letterbox, with the proclamation that we will be online again on April 30 – a mere 43 days after going offline at our last home. Now I'm a patient person give or take a few rants; and I am an understanding customer, provided there is a service to be satisfied with; and I have tried so hard not act as if the whole universe depended on each entity having uninterrupted access to the internet. But 43 days, when staying with the same provider, and expecting to be able to work from home – a home into which we moved on March 24, so it will be 37 days without online facility.

But I'm back regularly from May 1, allowing for a day or two to sort out any glitches, technophobic panics, computer hang-ups. Meantime thanks to those who left comments that had to wait till I could go online to moderate them. Margaret asked about perichoretic relationships – that will get its own post later.

Now started the new weekly regime of days at College and days in Westhill, Aberdeen. Travelling is now part of what I do – so I'm looking for ways to make time in the car more than a mere hiatus. Music, Radio 4, – haven't started talking books yet – not sure that's for me but willing to try. And strap line spotting. Lorries, vans, bill-boards, all displaying clever and not so clever strap lines. Might decide to do a strap line of the week. Followed a large lorry carrying shortbread. How many shortbread fingers on a 30 foot truck? And each one around 200 calories? The back of it had this image of golden crumbly butter enriched shortbread. Made to the recipe of Helen Deans, this family has been making shortbread for two generations. The strap line: "History in the baking", written just under this six foot image of a crumbly, butter shortbread finger. I followed it for a while wishing I'd brought a packet……

Beautiful sunny day here in Aberdeen. Morning spent answering emails, writing a couple of admin things what need to be wrote, and reading in preparation for next week's teaching. Also perused a mass of documents relating to stuff I'm doing next week – I do sometimes wonder just how much documentation is needed to establish a new course, and how that compares with how much is required to wear out a shredding machine. I know! My mood of skeptical impatience is not helpful.

It's been a mixed week of two days of meeting, course preparation and marking, rearrangements of books already arranged and rearranged, and in between in my leisure time I have cut swathes of organised space out ofa garage that was filled with all the stuff we didn't know what to do with under the immediate pressure of making sure the beds were up, the kettle was available, the painting was done for the carpet-fitters,  – oh, and the cold water tap on the bath was still secure…….

Speaking of leisure. The tapestry of the redstart is finished and I think it works. I'll scan it one of these days before it's framed, but I've enjoyed playing again with colour and texture, of wool, cotton and canvas. I am also now well on with the Celtic Cross but I think it is going to grow into a bigger piece of work – it is also free-hand, and I've seen some of the most stunningly dyed wool from Uruguay in a local shop, and I want to use it. The ideas aren't settled yet but I know what I want to try to do – just don't know yet how! Amongst the theological hints I am trying to weave into this is a trinitarian theme and an expression of perichoretic interrelationships. I know. Nothing if not ambitious, but why shouldn't symbol, colour, shape and pattern work on canvas as well as icon wood or oil canvas?

Off to read the next chapter of the new Bonhoeffer biography – in the sun, shaded, and with a large pot of earl gray tea. .  .

The title of this blog and the prescript in the title bar are borrowed and adapted from one of the scenes in Robert Bolt's play, A Man for All Seasons. In the life of Sir Thomas More, statesman with a conscience, civil servant par excellence, scholarly saint, theological policeman, astutely naive politician, one of the most turbulent and dangerous times was played out to its tragic end. Interpretations of More's life, character, motives and significance are varied, controversial, and usually depend on where the interpreter stands – Catholic or Protestant, traditionalist or revisionist, political realist or political idealist.

Yesterday I read A Man for All Seasons again. And over Christmas I read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which is more about Thomas Cromwell than Thomas More. But which exudes the same atmosphere of power, political menace, oppressive religious change, and a nation in the throes of transition from medieval to modern, and a church convulsed by cultural changes that would compel it to reconfigure its theology, its self understanding and eventually push it from the centre of power to the margins of cultural influence centuries later – now, in fact.

What remains the same is the complexity of Christian obedience and the costliness of Christian witness when the affairs and interests of state collide with the convictions and mission of the Church. And in the weeks leading up to a General Election what became clear yesterday as I read again the story of Thomas More, is at least one telling similarity between post-modern 21st Century Britain and late Tudor England. And that is how hard it is to identify good people who can get the job done. Who in all the vaccous rhetoric of the hustings are we to give credence to? Which political figures speak words that are expressions of conviction, conscience and humane intelligence – by which I mean whose policies are about compassion for people, concern for the health of society, for whom economics are not based on ruthless self-interest, for whom human community is not party coloured?

Whatever else Thomas More was, he was a man of conscience, "the person of the greatest virtue these islands ever produced", according to the opinionated wisdom of Samuel Johnson. And I am left asking, a little uncertainly, which of our political leaders are people of such conscience and conviction that they would risk all on maintaining personal integrity. More unsettling still – where in our modern political discourse does the idea, the concept, of conscience feature. What weight given to the inner experience of conscience as a crucial way of moral knowing, and as a voice that is allowed to share the conversation between reason, pragmatism and expediency?

So here is More again: "God made the angels to show him splendour – as he made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man he made to serve him wittily in the tangle of his mind!"

Innocence, simplicity, splendour – not really the stuff of politics. Political territory is more about the tangle of our minds, complexity, compromise, expediency, manipulation, power-broking. And in all that, to discover what it means to serve God wittily, with subtle intelligence, with wise caution, with lateral thought, but with conscience and conviction as moral parameters. Thomas More wasn't always right in what he thought was right. His treatment of Tyndale was in the technical sense, a scandal – in the moral sense, outrageous. That too is the danger of acting according to conscience, when the conscience is educable, malleable and then given supreme authority in human action. True enough.

But it is still the case that political activity, and the character of political acttivists and leaders, requires some public assurance of integrity, a clear statement of what is believed, articulated convictions about what they are about and what they would do with power. And whoever I vote for, questions of conscience, both mine and theirs, will go far in helping me decide – and that may not mean party lines at all. I will try to serve God wittily in the tangle of my mind!

Over the past week I have been working a tapestry I started a while ago and left in a desk drawer where I regularly came across it and always intended to finish it. I suppose the difficulty was knowing how to finish it. The design is entirely out of my head (don't do tapestry kits) – one of my favourite birds, the redstart, standing on a moss covered hillock against a sky at dusk. How do you capture a sky at dusk on stranded cotton thread, most often separated and mixed in a textile equivalent of pallette working, and the intricacies of colour, tone and shade on moss and heather, and the shape and proportion of a small bird, and all this using only a half-cross-stitch which is by definition a technique dependent on angles of mathematical precision, and on canvas with 20 to the inch guage? Easier to write and preach a sermon – sometimes.

Well it's almost finished and I'm as satisfied as I've any right to be given the outrageous daftness of trying to do this in the first place. There is a Celtic cross on the other frame which is coming along more slowly, a form of contemplative activity that allows reflection on the meaning of symbol, colour and pattern as itself a form of theologising. Mind you, tapestry is also a good tension guage – stitches pulled too tight, a tell-tale sign of stress reaching even to the fingertips. But the co-ordination, the practice that makes it possible to find precisely a tiny hole from the back of a canvas and so working blind, the gentle rhythm of making and allowing to become, is all very therapeutic. Which is just as well – they weren't kidding when they said relocation and house moving are up there in the top three of the premier league of stressors!

When the redstart is finished I'll scan it and post a picture – be a wee while yet. Meantime I need to start thinking about those other forms of tapestry – like life, work, relationships and all the other strands that make up the pattern of our days. Oh, and by the way, on my visit to the craft shop I'll need to buy a stitch remover, a small needle-like tool with a sharp delta blade for cutting out wrong stitches, removing evidence of mistakes, allowing the chance to get it right. Wish life had one of them too! :)).