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Now I know it's possible to take things too personally. And that when we begin to do that, we are assuming that we are the centre of attention, which is a bit self-obsessed. So I'm trying not to take it personally, that when I return from a few days on the East Coast (Crail), I'm just getting out the car in Paisley when the heavens open and malteser size hailstones start bouncing off my unprotected skull. And they fell with volume and venom for several minutes. No wonder Pharaoh hated hailstones- especially if he was bald and no one was areound with a palm leaf umbrella.

Anyway, Crail was both fun and fruitful. Some anecdotal evidence:

walking up the road from the centre of Crail we met an elderly woman pulling her shopping trolley. She liked the sound its wheels made, she said. "Makes it sound like a skateboard and people move out the road."

Bought a beautiful pottery vase for our wee hoose. The colours, shape, size and the overall Scottish feel to it appealed to both of us so the decison was unanimous. I love unanimity in a marriage – balanced with an equal amount of equanimity about differences.

Read chunks of the Apostolic Fathers in the new Michael Holmes edition that has the Greek text and the English translation. Just to be clear, I read chunks of the English translation, and occasionally deciphered a Greek sentence or two. But I've liked these early Christian thinkers and writers ever since Maxwell Staniforth's translation was published by Penguin in the 1970's. My aged Penguin was brown, split into looseleaf and recently recycled – so I bought this new edition that matches the format and size of my Greek NT.

Discovered at least three good coffee shops, and one where you get home made clootie dumpling with fresh thick cream, which I haven't had with coffee before but will have again – soon! The photo is the clue – after a 7 mile round walk from St Monans, what's a dollop of cream here or there?

Rediscovered the local practice of the Wednesday half day. As a sabbaticaling visitor I readily approved of the idea that if you have to work on a Saturday (or Sunday), there is a need for compensatory time – and a need to protect it. An incoming resident complained to the butcher that he was shut when she came the day before to buy the victuals for tea. His answer was enigmatic and emphatic 'Aye, but this is Crail". Which had me inwardly seconding the motion, "Aye, so it is".

Walked several chunks of the Fife Coastal Walk, and apart from the usual ornithological suspects, saw redstarts, linnets, goldfinches, a heron standing like a grey obelisk, and close ups of hunners and hunners of geese strip-mining a recently harvested field.

Read around John Wesley's theology and especially those theological traditions which most influenced him including the Moravians, the Greek Fathers, the Puritans, and various other contributors to the eclectic mix that makes Wesleyan theology both rich in its diversity and frustratingly elusive for those who insist on theological consistency.

Spoke with the proprietor of the wee Picture Gallery in Pittenweem, whose wife is a superb painter, and whose daughter is both a primary teacher and a painter in her own right. One of her paintings was beautiful – just what I'd like to have bought and looked at endlessly – but it was too expensive, so I was left to battle with my covetousness. He told us about some of the local artists some of whom are pretty good, and some of the more pretentious ones who see themselves as 'serious' artists. Art is largely a matter of taste, but I do find myself at times baffled by some abstract work which is given a very specific name – and I can't for the life of me get the connection between the name and the picture. Perhaps a conversation of the obtuse with the obtuse. But what a nice man to talk to.

So – Crail was great, and the break a generous gift – and our thanks to the givers.

Walking home from University after picking up some mail and parcels. Three fragments of conversation provided, if not food for thought, then at least a glimpse into alternative worldviews; on reflection, a triptych that shows the laughable and the likeable, the acceptable and the less acceptable sides of life in a town which has the kinds of problems that have no easy answers.
The world according to Paisley……

1. Two women are having a shouted conversation across the High Street. One of them has a birthday and is lamenting her fading looks. A car slows down and stops for the traffic light, cutting off vision and speech. Provokes the non-birthday wumman who shouts "Heh pal! Can ye move yur caur. We're hivin a conversation here!"
Sensible driver didn't make eye contact……

2. Three lassies taking up the pavement three abreast, all multi-tasking – talking, chewing gum, and texting. As they passed (or at least as I stood aside to let them pass, cos they weren't for breaking formation – you could just tell), I heard the intriguing story fragment, delivered with automatic pistol speed and threat,  "Aye but ma mither says she'll batter his mither if he disnae."
If he disnae what, I wondered. And how do they do that – walk, talk, chew and text in a display of skilful synchronised nonchalance?

3. Nearly home when a young guy, I guess third or fourth year from the Grammar, comes up smiles pleasantly and asks, 'Would you mind going intae that shop and getting me fags?" Had to decline, gently and courteously, and he said, "Aye nae worries, Need tae chuck it onyway".
Wish he'd asked me to do something I could have done – nice big lad just trying to work out his problems like the rest of us.

Off to do a Wesley pilgrimage down south – tell you about it later. If Sabbatical has a verb, I'm Sabbaticalling.

Baptism and the friendship of God

"God's initial offering of holy friendship occurs for us at the edge of the baptismal waters. in the initiating rite of baptism, we become disciples of the One who personifies God's friendship for us. Baptism interrupts our way of forming friendships based on what we hope to get out of them. in our new life of discipleship we learn a language that defies conventional  wisdom about friendships: stories that tell of welcoming strangers, loving the enemy, and describing as family those for whom water is thicker than blood". (Page 63).

The Church, its organisational life, structures and functional groups:

"We believe it is essential that we offer both our prayers and our devotion to the healthy institutions that need to be preserved, the diminished or dispirited ones that need to be healed, the dying ones that need to be let go, and new ones waiting to be born." (Page 151).

The Excellence that matters

"Excellence in the Christian vocation is a sign and instrument by which creation is healed, reconciliation is experienced, and justice is practiced." (Page 49).

Honest self-awareness

"For the mind often lies to itself about itself and makes believe that it loves the good work, when actually it does not, and that it does not wish for glory, when in fact it does." (Gregory the Great – cited Page 43).

Community interpreters.

"Interpreters are a community's custodians of both memory and hope, people who help set the challenges and opportunities of the present within the much larger context of what God has done in the past and where God is leading in the future." (Page 130).

Today I'm off to St Deiniol's for a personal reading retreat. I have to be in Crewe for a prior commitment Thursday coming, and the chance to combine that trip with a few days at St Deiniol's 40 minutes away was too good to miss. The banner under the photo syas something very near to my own sentiments – with just the moving of an 'S' – Libraries Matter!

I want to do some further work on Psalm 119 reflecting on the psalm as theological education within a wisdom curriculum. Not sure what will come out of this but I am trying to find a handle on Wisdom Psalms, and especially this elaborately constructed eulogy on the law of God, as structured encouragement to live Torah. The connections between Torah nurtured wisdom and theological education as life shaped by intentional practices of obedience to God, seem to me to promise important insights into what shapes and sustains ministry. In recent years there has been a growing recognition that ministry has its own competences. These are not mere practical skills, but grow out of theological and spiritually formative experience, and such competences express both the wisdom of a long, rich pastoral tradition, while also requiring of us an innovative adaptability in embodying and practising wise ministry in a contemporary and changing context.

My current commentary enthusiasm, Sam Balentine's commentary on Job will accompany me and I've scheduled some longer periods of reading in order to immerse myself more deeply in the flow of this remarkable volume. I'm also taking David Ford's Christian Wisdom, one of several volumes held back till they can be read without the interruption of normal life! It's the first of five big volumes I'm hoping to meander through by a daily diet of manageable chunks and careful note-taking.

Aside from those the library at St Deiniol's has enough variety to keep me going – including a superb Victorian poetry section. Books, music, running shoes, morning prayers, a cake and coffee shop across the road of which our Ministry Advisor advised a level of restraint (aye right!), – not doing the ascetic retreat, more an exercise in taking life easy, in a serious but not over-intense way – you know, the discipline of responsible freedom. So what would be responsible freedom in a coffee and cake shop? Hmmm? I'll let you know after some experiementation. No internet access for a few days so next blogging is after I get back.

You know how the automated voice on trains helpfully keeps you informed of your whereabouts?  For example:

"This is Dumbreck. The next stop is Glasgow Central where this train terminates."

At least, that's what you're supposed to hear. But if you're on sabbatical, and you're listening for a word from the Lord, you know, a wee word of encouragement or a hint that life is supposed to be for fun as well as work, and Sheila points out the phonetic possibilities, what you hear is

"This is Dumbreck. The next stop is Glasgow Central where the strain terminates".

And as Sheila and I were on our way to Miss Cranston's Tearoom we took this as such a wee prophetic word. At Glasgow Central the strain terminates, and fifty yards along Gordon Street is Miss Cranston's – now is that a wee word or what!
 Readers of this blog will remember I covered myself in embarrassment on my last visit after a bad experience with a cafetiere plunger that took messy revenge on me for forcing the issue. This time – nae problem. Just a gentle downward push, and all the staff can breathe a sigh of relief.

On another note, yesterday – while watching the afternoon downpour I was on the exercise bike listening to Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and the Fourth Horn Concerto. Not sure Mozart could ever have envisaged the joy he would bring a sweaty Baptist working out – but the Clarinet Concerto is a work of heartbreaking genius.

Tomorrow if I don't get out running cos of the rain – though it looks to be better – I'll listen to the first piece of classical music I ever sat right through and listened to – in astonished surprise. I was given it on a vinyl LP by Sheila (around 1974!) after I'd read Unfinished Journey, the autobiography of Yehudi Menuhin. It's Brahms' Violin Concerto, a piece I've listened to regularly ever since, and never yet tired of it.

Now. What else should I listen to that would tone up my mind and spirit the same way that physical exercise does the body? This month is classical – so any suggestions welcome. I've a wee budget for some new CDs.

One of the tasks over the next while is reducing the number of CDs which sit on the shelves no longer listened to. Charity shops here I come – but does anyone listen to the likely rejects anymore…..?.

After a long delay due both to my oversight then the inability of Typepad to cope with pasted content – (now in the improved version much easier), I can publish one of the shortest (if not the shortest) NT Introduction available to hard pressed students. Thanks to all those who contributed now months ago. I'll be soliciting contributions to the OT version soon.

Gospel of Matthew
Son of Abraham
Brings fulfilment of Torah
Global Commission
         Catriona Gorton

 Gospel of Mark
Good news! Here's a tale –
starts with mid-life crisis, then
stops before life starts.
        Andy Jones

 Gospel of Luke
Good News! For the poor,
'Sinners' and tax-collectors:
Healing salvation.
       Catriona Gorton

Gospel of John
The Word became flesh.
Uncomprehending darkness
eclipsed by the light.
       Jim Gordon

Acts
In Jerusalem
The Word in gracious power
To all the world's end.
    Jason Goroncy

 Romans
Saving God seeks… you:
sin-spoiled, grace-gained, destined. Die
to self, live to love.
       Andy Jones

 1 Corinthians
Life in the body –
A guide for a healthy church
Three cores: faith, hope, love.
       Catriona Gorton

2 Corinthians
Don't do what I said;
do what I meant – and don't give
me all this hassle!
       Andy Jones

 Galatians
In Christ free at last
They try to re-enslave me
Glory in God's Cross
       Jason Goroncy

 Ephesians
God (who called you to
the skies) fill, gift and grow you;
live in light as one!
       Andy Jones 

 Philippians
A prisoner writes
of joy and freedom, for Christ's
crowning came through loss.
       Andy Jones

Colossians
False philosophies
hinder. Live holy lives, be good
to one another.
       Andy Jones

 1 Thessalonians
Renowned for your faith
Live with faithful vigilance
The Lord is coming!
       Jim Gordon

 2 Thessalonians
Show perseverance!
Stand against the Man of Sin!
Shun pious spongers!
Jim Gordon

 Philemon
Neither slave nor free!
Since bound together in Christ,
Free Onessimus.
Jim Gordon

 1 Timothy.
Teach what you were taught,
my son. Practice your gifts, and
keep the flock faithful.
Andy Jones

 2 Timothy
Stick at it young Tim!
Pleasing God should be your aim.
P.S. bring my coat!
       Catriona

Titus
Pick leaders with care:
prize sound doctrine AND lifestyle.
Epimenides!
Catriona

Hebrews
Spoken by the Son
Lo, our great high priest has come
Grace be with you all
Jason  Goroncy

 James
Oft misunderstood
Harmony of faith and deeds
Practical wisdom
       Catriona Gorton

 1 Peter
A chosen people
kept by the power of God
through fiery trial
       Jim Gordon

 2 Peter
Divine election
Means live the last days trusting
Precious promises!
       Jim Gordon

I John
Walk in light and love!
Holy love will cast out fear
from hearts made perfect.
       Jim Gordon

 2 John
Thirteen verses long:
Lady and kids, walk in love.
Beware docetism!
       Gordon Jones

 3 John
The elder commends
kind hospitality (wish
others followed suit!)
       Andy Jones

 Jude
Beware false teachers!
Love the sinner, hate the sin.
God will keep you safe.
       Catriona

 Revelation
Valour in suff'ring
The Lamb who opens the scroll
Making all things new
       Jason Goroncy

Trawling around on the internet looking for some places I used to know I came across class photos from a school I attended in the late 1950's.

Here's the class photo. Not telling which one is me – not yet anyway! Guesses welcome.

Tuesday I'm off to the Baptists Doing Theology in Context Consultation. Not taking the laptop so won't be blogging till the weekend. I've included the menu of papers below, with apologies to participants who are noted here only by surname.
The overarching theme of the Consultation is 'The Wisdom of this World', and a keynote address will be delivered by Professor Paul Fiddes, sure to be a theological and intellectual highlight for all of us. Paul has been a major inspiration and encouragement for Baptists to engage together in theological reflection and pastorally constructive consultation. His own theological writings are exemplary of a theology that frutifully combines generous breadth in its ecumencial debts, and clear historical and theological focus in exploring and affirming the essentials of  a Baptist identity recovering its confidence.

Beyond that the idea of the consultation is that there will be three papers offered by particpants in each Open Session (five of these), all based on work they are doing within their own vocational context. Each of the College Principals will lead a plenary session based on their Paper, which will tackle some aspect of contemporary culture and attempt to hear and interpret the wisdom of this world as those who live by a more radical wisdom. It is going to be a theologyfest reflecting the remarkably wide range of theological interest amongst Baptists in the UK. I'll do a report here sometime over the coming weekend. After which I will be on sabbatical leave – a promised disengagement that may take me a week or two to adjust to.

Papers Offered for Baptists Doing Theology in Context

Topics and Timetable

 

Name	Paper Title	Time
Langford	“God in the Conversation: An Alternative to the Business Model of Church Meeting.”	Tue 4.pm
Vincent	“Living with the Bible Today: The Rhetoric and the Reality.”	Tue 4.pm
Presswood        &McBeth	“Embracing Eleanor: A Response to the Apology for Slavery.”	Tue 4.pm
Holyer	“Something Different – Theology Now.”	Wed 9.30
Humphreys	“The Provenance of John 8.-11. Some Light from Statistics.”	Wed 9.30
Kidd (Rosemary)	“‘And when was it we saw you a stranger and welcomed you?’ (Mat.25.38) Engaging with Asylum Seekers.”	Wed 9.30
Bottoms	“Spiritual Direction in the Service of the Kingdom of God".	Thurs 9.30
Carter	“Labelling ‘the sinners’ in Luke’s Gospel.”	Thurs 9.30
Colyer	“The Geometry of God.”	Thurs 9.30
Goodliff	“From dedication to presentation: a study of Baptist Order of Service for Infants.”	Thurs 4.pm
Gorton	“Doing Theology: History for the Health of the Church.”	Thurs 4.pm
Gotobed	“Ministerial Formation, Pastoral Experience and Practical Theology.”	Thurs 4.pm
Philips	“Wotsername!”	Fri 9.30
Thacker	“The Significance of Richard Dawkins' Atheistm for Christians and Others Today.”	Fri 9.30
Haymes	“The Communion of Saints.”	Fri 9.30
	Plenary Papers by College Principals
Finamore	“Atonement in Novel and Film.”	Tue 2.30pm
Wright	“Theological Topography – The stones cry out!”	Tue 7.30
Kidd	“From Cave Painting to Icons.”	Wed 7.30
Gordon	“Giving poets their place: Why Theologians should read Carol Ann Duffy.”	Thurs 11.am
Weaver	“Twenty Four Hour News.”	Thurs 7.30
Ellis	“Sport, Culture and Theology.”	Fri 11.am