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The appointment by the UK Government of a Minister for Loneliness is to be warmly and supportively welcomed. However, the need for such an appointment raises a cluster of questions about the nature of our society, what we are doing to each other as human beings, the impact of digital technology, consumerist culture, the premium placed on productiveness and usefulness in an economy hardened into globalised competition and corporate ruthlessness. The role of entertainment, electronic amusement, and vicarious online existence, added to ever developing technological capacity, is leaving many behind who are tired of the race, or don't have the resources to participate in a world increasingly dependent on electronic devices and technological savvy.

One example may help to clarify the nature and some of the causes of the loneliness epidemic. In Scotland a few weeks ago the Royal Bank of Scotland announced the closure of 62 branches in Scotland, many of them in rural areas, and a number of them the only local bank in the community. Now the reasons are said to be a response to changes in customer behaviour as more and more customers do their business online. That's a nother argument. My interest is in what the impact of such closures might be in those communities, and in the relationship between such corporate decisions made for economic and shareholder interests, and the social, community and personal diminishment such closures inevitably bring. There is an irony worth pondering in a bank owned mainly by the UK Government, closing bank branches in rural communities and withdrawing the communal exchange and social interchange, the local identity and sense of belonging, that such local services bring. One more opportunity for social interaction is removed; one more identity conferring loceal service disappears. For a lonely person there is all the difference in the world between online banking, and a walk to the local bank to do the business both of the transaction and of human conversation, relatedness, and narrative forming activity. I realise banks are not there to do social work; but they are part of society, and contribute to the common good, but only if they exist other than online.

There are obviously complex causes and explanations for the human experience of loneliness in a culture such as ours. The new Minister for Loneliness is aware of the need for wide consultation, gathering of reliable data, and an exploration of what is a significant cultural phenomenon. The world has never had more people, and yet loneliness is both on the rise, and becoming increasingly evident. You can catch up with the news of the appointment of a Minister of Loneliness here.    The article finishes with this look forward:  "Britain’s loneliness initiative will see a strategy published later this year, with input from national and local government, public services, the voluntary sector and businesses." So the churches in the voluntary sector, what is the church response? Will the role of the churches as communities of belonging be recognised and their experience listened to? I hope so

But I'm just as interested in the  theological and pastoral questions that loneliness raised for the church.  Much of the energy, vision and resources of church communities are being invested in agonising about missional strategy, trying to slow the quickening drip, drip, of the narrative of church decline and closure, persistently pursuing the search for relevance and connectedness, and even praying and hoping for a workable raison d'etre for such a community as a church. Not everything is wrong with much of that, and a lot of it is right, or at least rightly intentioned. 

But before we get to the solutions or alleviations of loneliness it would be wise to try to understand loneliness itself.  As a Christian theologian I sense deeper questions for a church seeking to be faithful to the Gospel as a peace-making, reconciling community energised by the agape of God and seeking to embody the welcome and hospitality of God. Loneliness is a profoundly negating experience for human beings made for relatedness.

The Christian tradition is deeply rooted in the idea of community, relatedness, social being. Christian ethics are by definition ethics of love understood as agape, expressed in the welcome and practical care of and for the other. The incarnation of God in the man Jesus immediately raises the question of the worth of all humanity and each human being's value to God. The Christian understanding of humanity is formed and informed by the doctrine of creation as the personal act of the Triune God, understood as a community of eternal, mutual and reciprocal love. That self-giving creative love overflows in the calling into being of all that is not God, but in its existence is God loved, God sustained, and God purposed. Out of such a theology of eternal love and creative purpose, the biblical narrative gives us the astonishing overheard conversation of the Triune Creator, "Let us make humanity in our image! I know there are textual complexities in those words embedded in the creation narrative, but the fundamental reality is announced. Human beings are created in the image of God, and Gos is Triune. We are mode for community, relatedness, social exchange, mutual and reciprocal experience. Loneliness plunges us into deep and durable questions of what human beings are, what human experience and existence is for, and how that capacity for others is to be lived in communities of belonging, exchange and flourishing.

Tuesday January 16 and finished the first cycle of reading through the Gospel of Mark. I am experimenting with lectio continua, reading continually through a gospel a number of times, at least a chapter a day. Familiarity with the narrative is enhanced by growing appreciation for Marcan style, noticing new and recurring vocabulary, seeing pericopes in new structural contexts, all of which is to allow the text to slowly soak into the mind to create its own inner responsiveness.

Alongside the lectio continua of the text, a slow read through one of the more critical and challenging commentaries. In this case the volume by Eugene Boring. I've sometimes wondered how you get on through life with a surname like "Boring". Thing is, his commentary on Mark is anything but. Indeed, Eugene Boring is an established exegete with several commentaries to his name and the words stimulating and independent describe best his approach. His commentary on Revelation is both readable and responsible; on Matthew, which he contributed to the New Interpreter's Bible, he comes at that highly organised Gospel with fresh insights and longstanding reflection; his most recent work is on Thessalonians and it too is mainstream critical but without losing the sense that the text belongs to the church, and belongs in the church, as Word of God and bread for mind and soul. Boring is a good choice of conversation partner.

One of the difficulties, or perhaps advantages, of reading Mark like this is that I have the time to live in the text. In the past I've read Mark through a number of times at one sitting, read chunks of it hundreds of times over 50 years, so I already think I know quite a lot about it. Why then lectio continua? Is it an attempt to squeeze out something more, extra, even new? Perhaps.

But perhaps also it is seeking the kind of intellectual and spiritual adventure that underlies the memorable book by Marcus Borg, in which he invited his readers to join him in meeting Jesus again for the first time. But you can't not know what you know, can you? You can't read a familiar text as if you didn't know what was in it, what was coming, how it ends, can you? No. But because we are creatures of time and context, living with change and always changing ourselves, each new reading of a text like Mark, takes place at a different time and in a different context for each of us.

The same text addresses a different person; the same text speaks into the changing continuity that is each one of us; same text, same Jesus. Maybe like the disciples in Mark, I can be obtuse, sceptical, too tied to the limitations of my own horizons, too afraid to get out of the boat and walk with Jesus, too thick to know what to do with 5 loaves and 2 fishes second time around, too scared to go beyond Gethsemane to the darkness beyond all light, and too scared to go anywhere near the tomb – leave that to the women!   

Be that as it may, this same text speaks to me in different ways at different times because I'm never the same person two days in a row. For example the parable of the sower takes on a whole new meaning when I realise I'm overstretched, running around desperately trying to fulfil expectations and demands. When I've no time to deepen my heart and mind with nourishing food for soul and intellect, all the good seed of what God is trying to say and do in my life falls on stony ground. Or God's good Gospel word is choked by weeds which ironically grow best in good soil, while their toxic, choking presence nullifies the capacity of that same soil to produce crops without them being strangled for space. Or to change the metaphor but stay with the same parable, a well trodden path is good for easy travel; but it's the place of death for seeds that contain the future.

Lectio continua is then my personal experiment with the Gospel of Mark this year. What good will it do? What discernible benefits will come my way? Will I learn new lessons about Jesus and new directions in discipleship, because after all Mark is about those two big themes, Christology and discipleship? Will I find coming near Easter a stronger pull into the passion story, told with unexampled power by Mark? Will I get scunnered reading the same text over and over, and end up complying with a self-imposed discipline just because it is self-imposed, and my ego doesn't like to let itself down?

If it takes just over 2 weeks to read Mark, then by the end of the year I'll have read it 24 times. That's a lot of Gospel. You'd think it would become boring; but I have Boring to keep me on track! 

“What are human beings that you care for them?” That question from Psalm 8, was asked by a man standing staring at a starry night illumined by a super moon. It led him to the conclusion that each human being is uniquely valued by God. That’s what we call a worldview, a way of looking at human life and the care of the world, and how we are called to live towards human flourishing.

Amongst the gifts and achievements of human culture and life together is language. How we speak to each other also betrays our worldview, and affects our shared history. Language enables a meeting of minds, hearts, wills and ultimately of people; but language also accuses, provokes, encases the hated ‘other’ in threatening rhetoric, and defines the speaker as the righteously and legitimately enraged.

We live and die by the way we use language. Our shared life on this planet depends on us all living creatively with the tensions of risk and trust, peacefulness and anger, fear and love. Because what is at stake when human lives are threatened is the glory and tragedy of human beings in our life together. Psalm 8 is a reminder, even a warning, about the precious premium God puts on each uniquely created human being, every last mother’s child of us. A poem by Elizabeth Jennings points the way.

Anger, pity, always, most, forgive.

It is the word which we surrender by,

It is the language where we have to live.

No wonder Jesus warned that one day we will be held accountable for every word we have spoken. Words have the power to make and break worlds.

Dreich. Dull. Damp. Dark. On the exercise bike for a while to energise a day seriously threatening an emotional slump.For those not native to Scotland and some of our Scot's words, "dreich" is a particularly handy adjective.

Think of mist and drizzle combined to form mizzle.

Think low thick clouds with not the slightest hint of the sun, all day.

Think temperatures hovering just above freezing, with a North Sea breeze blowing the mizzle in your muzzle!

Dreich is a word that sums up the kind of weather that might trigger a duvet day with a good book, intravenous tea and buttered toast. Except if it lasts more than a day it's a hioghly effective joy suppressant. You need strategies for dreich days. One of mine is the exercise bike with music that helps transcend the boredom that is concomitant of the benefits of uphill pedalling and not going anywhere!

Today I listened to a Chris De Burgh CD. I know, you like his music or you don't. I do. Not least because he has a social conscience, and much of his music is aimed at those emotional levers that make us care about the world, about other people, about wrongs that need to be made right, and rights that are too often violated, suppressed or ignored. Halfway through my circuit his song No Borderline came blasting through. If I'm in on my own I like my music to be, well, assertive in a loud kind of way. Listen to the track here ….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNr3FxLbLPc

War, borders, national interest, the claims of the nation state on the lives of mostly young men; each of these woven into what can only be called a modern lament of heartbreak, separation, lost innocence and far too often lost opportunities and lost lives. I found myself thinking about a world of walls and borderlines, and what the role of the communities of Jesus Christ in such a world. Each local church an Embassy of King Jesus, with ambassadors of Christ who represent the interests of the Kingdom of God. 

Paul was a citizen of Rome, and of the world, and of heaven. And as a citizen of heaven he saw beyond the limited horizons of our own history and hopes. Paul's Gospel challenges the deeply dug foundations of divisions throughout human society and across national and ethnic and religious borders, while also acknowledging that those political realities exist along with 'powers, principalities and authorities' which are actually subservient to Christ as Lord. The Hebrew Prophets also looked for both eschatological fulfilment and historical change. The Chris De Burgh song is about those divisive and dangerous borderlines that are territorial markers, and the cost and consequences of defending them. Thus looking forward to the days when there are no borderlines, it is one of my core convictions that the Body of Christ anticipates and gives credence to such hope by embodying in its members and in local communities of the Gospel, the peacemaking, reconciling Good News of Jesus incarnate, crucified, risen and Lord of creation and of cosmic history. As followers of Jesus live out the truth that in Christ dividing walls of hostility are already broken down, so borderlines begin to dissolve and deep foundations of division come under pressure from the unsettling truths of a reconciling God, a love that challenges hate, a life that defies death, and a hope that serves notice on the status quo of borderlines.

And all this started with a song, which started me wondering about the church, and borders, and walls, and fences, and exclusion zones, and that dehumanising descriptor "no man's land". After my shower, I read some of the more subversive texts of Isaiah and John the Seer and was reminded of what I shouldn;t have forgotten, even for a day however dreich, they day is coming when there will be no borderlines…..

BORDERLINE, Chris De Burgh

I'm standing in the station
I am waiting for a train
To take me to the border
And my loved one far away
I watched a bunch of soldiers heading for the war
I could hardly even bear to see them go

Rolling through the countryside
Tears are in my eyes
We're coming to the borderline
I'm ready with my lies
And in the early morning rain, I see her there
And I know I'll have to say goodbye again

And it's breaking my heart, I know what I must do
I hear my country call me but I want to be with you
I'm taking my side, one of us will lose
Don't let go, I want to know
That you will wait for me until the day
There's no borderline, no borderline

Walking past the border guards
Reaching for her hand
Showing no emotion
I want to break into a run
But these are only boys, and I will never know
How men can see the wisdom in a war

Several times in the past few days I've found myself becoming protective and defensive about the National Health Service. It started with the predictions of crisis in the A&E departments. My emotional responses were intensified by listening to the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, apologising for the cancellation of elective surgery for a whole month. The apology was itself an example of refusing to accept responsibility while seeming to care deeply about consequences for which he and the current Government are largely responsible. I know that previous Governments have contributed to the decline of funding and the growing crisis, but since 2010 the decline towards collapse has sharpened. The Prime Minister also climbed on the apology bandwagon, using the customer services apology approach whereby the inconvenience and indeed suffering of patients is a matter of regret, but not our fault. In other words the apology is being redefined as a defusing and diffusing device, used to give the appearance of empathy and support, but which never reaches those deeper levels at which decisions are made, policies changed and resources restored to adequate levels.

Now there is every reason for every one of us to be protective and defensive of our NHS. Amongst the strongest arguments for the NHS is the basis on which it was founded, the vision that gave impetus to its formation, the politics and humane principles that underlay its creation.

Aneurin Bevan envisaged nothing less than a revolution in social care and community responsiveness to illness, vulnerability, suffering and human equality. The idea of a universal health service free to each at the point of need was always going to be a major budget cost needing realistic funding policies and a commitment to paying that expense because the NHS is worth it, because the people it serves are valued.

And right there, is one of the primary pressure points 70 years on. The worth of people is increasingly being set against the cost of their care. The evidence for this is now pervasive, and I would say corrrosive of the central vision of a National Health Service. The commodification of health care, the introduction of multi levels of highly salaried management over several decades, the value for money mentality that cannot see that profit is not the goal, the bottom-line obsession as the driver to budget cutting, resource scarcity and salary erosion our nations; these and other policies and principles are at odds with the fundamental nature of the National Health Service.

This is all aggravated by the layers of competing departments throughout Government where the Health Service is one amongst many loud voices arguing for its priority status. That requires a Health Secretary who is committed to the health of the Health Service. In his recent 'apology' Jeremy Hunt reiterated his frequent claim to want to create the best Health Service in the world. Which raises the obvious question, asked ad nauseam by Health Service Staff across all levels of medical and ancillary care, why then cut the funding? Why contribute to the crisis? 

The politics and economics of running a National Health Service cannot evade issues of cost, affordability and long term viability. But that was also the challenge in the late 1940's when a post-war impoverished Britain nevertheless launched a health service which they knew would be expensive, and would therefore require the commitment and the financial sacrifices of a population prepared to pay the necessary taxes for the extraordinary benefit of health security. I am not arguing, I don't know that anyone is, that the NHS should have unrestrained access to public funding. Of course there has to be a sense of realism, legitimate constraint, acknowledging that not everything can be afforded, accepting that advances in medical technology brings new therapeutic benefits that have to be weighed against other demands from within the Health Service.

So not everything is posssible, but we know that. But that's not the same as cancelling a month's operations because a crisis has been created, even manufactured, by economic policies and Government funding decisions that are ideologically driven. And all this in a culture where truth, facts and realities are besmirched and befogged by a rehearsed vagueneness of content in rhetoric redolent of concern, but empty of substance and possessed of an adamantine commitment to market principles in a Health Service that was always going to be non-profit, would always run at a loss, and was formed as a national co-operative of medical care funded by taxes, and valued as worth it. Because behind that vision is a view of human community in which each human being takes responsibility for the care of each other. That's worth paying for.

And yes, efficiency and best use of resources is an absolute requirement. And yes, there are other areas of human flourishing that also need funding from the finite resources of a population's wealth and taxes. And yes, it will always be possible to improve, become more efficient, make better choices, cut back on wasteful practices, manage resources more effectively and deploy those who work in the NHS in ways that exploits their gifts and skills well, but without exploiting them.

In the end, the National Health Service is a loss maker if the thing that matters most is money.

But the National Health Service is this country's most profitable organisation if people matter more than money.

It is absolutely value for money if health is a life good to be pursued, enabled and delivered whenever needed to whoever needs it.

It is a national treasure, an experiment in social compassion withour equal across the world.

It is a major contributor to the nation's wealth if that is measured in social security, community health, and life quality for our most vulnerable, and for all the rest of us who, at some time in life, will become amongst our most vulnerable, and therefore most grateful for an NHS that is there for us.

This lovely Delft tile was a gift from a Dutch friend – recently reframed. Curiously the text given is wrong – it should be Matthew 14.29ff. Something happened in the proof reading, copy ediiting and textual transmission

In any case the scene of Peter being helped out of the water by Jesus seems to suggest Jesus is on the shore giving a helping hand to a soaking Peter.

Which in turn suggests the artist's recall of the Gospel stories may be a conflation of the three stories – Jesus calms the storm (Mark); Jesus walks on water (Mathhew); Jesus appears after the resurrection (John).

All of which makes the picture even more evocative, and a reminder that when you are in deep….seawater, Jesus isnae far away

I started this blog 11 years ago. The aim was to stimulate thought, discussion and engagement with other perspectives and other folk's ways of looking at the world. My own perspective is Christian, with every attempt at being open, respectful and helpful through my writing.

Over the years the blog platform has become much less popular as social media has moved on to formats that are more immediate, integrated and demand shorter time to write, read and respond to. The down side of that is the move away from longer more considered pieces, impatience with carefully constructed argument, and habituation to the transient immediacy of alternative smartphone friendly social media.

All of which raises the obvious question of whether a blog is worth the bother. Who reads it anyway? Why write when the number of hits on a given day is now low enough to force the questions of why bother, who reads it anyway, and is there a better use of my time? I'm not the only person asking these questions. I have a number of blogging friends whose blogs are now all but dormant and who have moved on to other things. Maybe blogs have had their day.

But. Writing is for me an enriched form of thinking. It is an act of self discovery as much as self expression. I write to think, and to think through, and to think again. More deeply still, to write can move from thought to reflection, and now and then to enter that stream of meditative movement towards understanding, which moves towards wisdom, and the eventual and occasional joy of discovering what you did not think you knew, and wouldn't have known you knew if you hadn't sat down, started writing and thus started looking!

I write as a theologian, as a Christian minister, but also, and just as importantly, as someone whose values and life passions are deeply rooted in whatever enables human life to flourish. In that sense I am a humanist, whose educational focus both in learning and in teaching, has been the humanities, and who since I read the words as a boy, has tried to "look humanely forth on human life".  

This post is not to announce the end of Living Wittily. But it is to reiterate the "end" of Living Wittily, that is, its goal, purpose, and what makes it worth my while doing the writing, thinking and sharing. Eleven years ago I wrote my rationale for keeping this blog and doing the work to maintain it with fresh writing and thought. You can read it over here. I don't see the need to change any of that, but it does remind me of the possibilities and opportunities of having a place to think, write and seek the fellowship of other readers.

To those who do happen by this blog, regularly or occasionally, thank you for the time and interest, and feel free to leave a comment. Shalom, and may peace grace your life and your living.

 

 

The incarnation of our Lord lies at the heart of Christian faith. When the arguments for and against virgin birth have been faithfully spoken and honestly heard, there remains a residue of truth, a core of mystery not amenable to explanation. A small part of that mystery is the faith of Mary who was able to say, 'Be it done according to your will,' and the faith of Joseph prepared to live with consequences he had no way of foreseeing. Clustered around the divine miracle of annunciation and incarnation are a number of smaller miracles of human trustfulness and openness to the coming of God. Perhaps we can be helped in our appreciation of such miracles of faith if we do a little reverent prying into the emotional rationale behind Joseph's reaction to Mary's own disturbing annunciation.

 

 Sleep on it, Joseph.

Every time one of our old Rabbis conducts a betrothal, or a wedding ceremony

he tells the joke about the angel who gives just one wish.

He told it at our betrothal reception, when Mary and I got engaged.

One day a man did an act of great kindness.

As a reward he is visited by an angel.

" Heaven has sent me to reward you, whatever you want done, heaven will grant."

After thinking carefully the man said, " Build me a bridge from Jerusalem to Rome

so I can visit my family whenever I want to without going the long way round."

" Wait a blessed minute ", said the angel. "Have you any idea what that costs?

Fifteen hundred miles of bridge! Give or take.

Even angels have to stick to spending guide-lines

and work within the constraints, imposed on the miracles budget.

Austerity, you know?

Choose something else. Give me another option. "

The man replied, " O.K. Help me to understand how a woman's mind works."

After much thought the angel asked, "How many lanes do you want on your bridge?"

 

The rabbi told it as a joke.

But hard as I've tried, and long as I've thought, I still don't understand the mind of Mary.

What she thought, and what she felt about what happened to her, and what it did to us.

I didn't understand why Mary disappeared for three months to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

I didn't understand when she came back and said she was three months pregnant.

I didn't understand when she said " I've never been unfaithful. The baby is God's gift."

I didn't understand why she, the woman, should be the one who got to decide on the name.

I couldn't believe her story about being visited by an angel, who told her that,

of all the women in the world, God had chosen her as his point of entry into human affairs

I didn't understand, and I don't understand, in fact,

I'll never understand how a virgin can be pregnant.

 

What I did understand, was that the Mary, who was promised to me,

now belonged to someone else.

What I did understand, because I'm not just a man, I'm a just man,

was the need to protect Mary, from public shame and legal penalty.

What I did understand was that our future stops here.

No marriage! No shared joy! No family of our own!

Just this unwanted pregnancy forcing us apart.

And what I did understand, and felt as a life-defining ache

was the sense of opportunity lost, grief at the wasted possibilities,

the concrete-hard certainty our dreams had ended.

 

But the dreams weren't ended!

I thought, just like the just, sensible, supposed to be unimaginative man I am,

I thought, I'll deal with this rationally, quietly divorce her, and get on with my life.

Still, before doing anything I decided to sleep on it!

But it wasn't a slumberland sleep. It was restless, anxious sleep;

my mind and body tossing and turning, in synchronised uneasiness.

Then through my confusion and hurt, a shining clarity.

Interrupting my scheming and dreaming, a voice that shook my whole being awake.

 

An angel, not like the one in the rabbi's joke.

He didn't ask me what I wanted more than anything. Not that it would have mattered.

I wanted the one thing I could no longer have… Mary, uncomplicated, faithful,

understandable Mary, my Mary.

Mary before all this angels and God nonsense.

But before I could think of what to say, the angel spoke.

 "Joseph, don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,

because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus,

because he will save his people from their sins."

 

I no longer doubted Mary. But what it must have meant for her,

what it does to a woman to have others question her integrity as a woman,

while all the time she is being faithful to God by receiving the gift of the Almighty.

That I have not, I cannot, understand.

I don't understand how Mary, carried the burden of truth, that she would mother God's son.

I don't understand her openness to God, her obedient humility,

or her determined brave yes to the purposes of God.

Like the child she carried, she nurtured and nourished

the truth of God's loving purposes for us and the whole world.

 

I don't understand the ways of God, not even when angels tell me.

In my dream a deeper reality than I ever imagined had come close to me;

And in Mary, the deepest reality of all was coming true.

God coming close to the world in an inconceivable conception.

God with us, love made flesh, borne and born through Mary.

The Rabbi's joke about bridges and a woman's mind?

To unimaginative, rational patronising men,

perhaps understanding a woman is miracle enough.

But when it comes to bridges,

through the faithful intuition,

the imaginative love,

the trustful yes of a woman,

God built a far, far bigger bridge than a Jerusalem to Rome flyover.

The promised bridge between heaven and earth,

through the faith of a woman, and the birth of a baby.  

That's a miracle of love that exceeds all budgets,

A gift so generous it ends all austerity,

A mercy of such kindness it wipes out the deepest deficits of our costliest sins.

And like much else in this story of my sad so joyful life,

As just a man, reasonable, sensible and scared of too much emotion,

I’ll never understand it.