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  • Pastoral Care, Dementia and the Memory of Love

    My friend is a great fan of Duke Ellington. Naturally, he is an amateur expert on Jazz, and all things Ellington. He first introduced me to the Sacred Concerts

    Visiting him now, this good old friend, over the last few years, has increasingly been affected by alzheimer's disease. Pastoral care and visiting are now important occasions of kenosis, of self-forgetful love. The fragility and uncertainty of communication, not knowing whether we are recognised at any level registering within the heart and mind  of my friend; then, our friend's overwhelming tiredness of body and mind, and the consequent and apparent vacancy of a face well lined with the wrinkles and muscle movement of tens of thousands of past smiles.

    There is conversation all around the day room; some of it is the banter of carer and cared for; some is the talk of those still able to build the scaffolding of meaning, to keep the conduits of communication alive with words and memories and shared experience.

    And then, some is the one way conversation of a lover with the beloved, a child with the parent, a friend with a lifelong friend, a husband or wife with the one who has shared decades of a life that had become symbiotic, a two way traffic journey of love, companionship and conscious commitment to see life together. It is this dynamic but complex relationship between human love and dementia that raise deep and searching questions about who we are in relation to those we love, and who they are in relation to us.

    Because now for the lover who comes to visit the beloved one, to care and to be with this so long loved person, all this shared life story seems to have become the responsibility of the one; and a life once shared is now constricted after all these years, to singleness of intent, when only one is left to sustain the two way covenant and having to do so alone. Shared imagination and hopefulness are now the responsibility of the one in whom those precious human gifts are still at the service of this uniquely crafted human relationship.

    And then there is the remembering of the one and the not remembering of the other. Memory is fading, memory, that precious essential component of personality and character. Memory is failing or failed, and previously vivid pictures are now gray, ambiguous, perhaps even blank for all we know. Memory, where resides the plot and purpose and repository of the unique story of all that has been for these two people, slips into confusion and eventual emptiness. Remembering too becomes the willingly borne burden of the one, in whose memory the other lives, and in whom their identity retains definite and cherished existence. These are burdens hard to bear, and requiring pastoral care that combines the delicacy of a neurosurgeon touching raw nerves, and the faithfulness and courage to be there in the anger, anguish and bereavement of a lover forgotten by the beloved.

    Visiting a unit which specialises in the care of people with dementia, therefore, requires a deep kenosis of the spirit. Our competence as communicators, and our training in saying the right thing, are stripped of much of their effectiveness, Our dependence on the usual ways of relating through touch, eye contact, sound of voice and particularly the currency of words, concepts, and ideas, has to be abandoned, because with this person, at this time and in this place, much more is required of us.

    Oh yes, words still matter; the speaking voice remains an essential reaching out to the other; and eye contact, touch and gesture retain their value as gifts of the self to the other. But without the comfort of knowing that the beloved other understands, will respond,  will reward us with recognition, acknowledgement, and those exchanges that enrich, enhance and confirm our relationship. This is loving with no thought of reward; this is casting the bread of our caring upon the waters with no promise whatsoever that they will return to us.

    The great prayer of Ignatius Loyola, wih minimal adjustments, can be a useful prayer which we say before going to visit in a unit dedicated to caring for people with dementia.

    Teach us, good Lord, to serve these your children, as they deserve;

    To give, and not to count the cost,

    to speak and not to heed the empty silences,

    to toil at being present, and not to seek for rest,

    to labour with tireless heart, and not to ask for any reward,

    save that of knowing that to these your children,

    we are conduits of your love, and bringers of your Presence.

    Amen  

  • Highlights of the Week. 1. The Lecture and the Love Story.

    It's been a rich and fun few days. Prestigious lecture, student graduations, Romeo and Juliet and a day in Aberdeenshire at the Echt Show. In this post, the lecture and the Love Story.

    First, the Lecture. Former Lord Advocate and Chamncellor of the University of the West of Scotland, Dame Elish Angioli, delivered the Brough Lecture in the University of the West of Scotland. She spoke with expert familiarity about Women and Justice in Scotland: Three Perspectives. Even those who reckon they know a bit about the Scottish Justice system, and about women in relation to justice, crime and society, were left in no doubt, we don't know enough, think enough and at times seem not to care enough. I'll come back to some of her content in a later post; but there are few better spent hours in my life this past year than the two spent listening and learning to a woman who combines rapier intelligence,  authoritiative experience, accumulated wisdom, critical compassion and that important strand of the Scottish Enlightenment, common sense.

    Then there was the Love Story on Thursday evening. The picture is from Twitter. The contagious energy, unselfish commitment, up for it gutsiness, line learning discipline, musical know how and uninhibited belief in what they do makes the PACE performance therapeutic enough to want to bottle it and take some away. I loved it, and here's the thing – these young folk made me want to go and get my Arden copy out the back of the bookshelf and read it again through the exegetical lens of young passionate West of Scotland voices.

    After the show we went to a local good place for Italian ice cream (chocolate and vanilla) and cappuccino – hey, come on, it was Romeo and Juliet after all. Paying the bill I told our table service person where we'd been, and said the starring couple had died brilliantly. 'Oh that's the best bit", she enthused. She reckoned the better they died the better we cried! Love it, that universalisation of the human tragedy of all consuming love frustrated by adamantine circumstance and human misunderstanding!!

    Occasions like these, lecture and love story, help explain why I love the West of Scotland, its University and its folk. And why, living in the North East, I'll still be doon the road now and then to top up my accent!

    Tomorrow pics of Graduation and some of the main participants at the Echt (agricultural) Show.

  • Gaza again: what is a Christian perspective on the slaughter of the innocents on both sides of a concrete wall of hate?

    I am sick and tired of this. I did a search for Gaza on my previous blog posts since I started in 2007 and found several posts in which I tried to express outrage, sorrow, hunger for peace, perplexity, compassion. You try to be fair, to see both sides; you know that rockets into Israel will bring missiles and tanks intyo Gaza; you try to understand the mentality of a people whose own natioanl tragedies have been about overwhelming power harnessed to their destruction, about the ghettoisation of the enemy. And against this the recent background of three Israeli teenagers and the burning alive of a Palestinian teenager, allegedly as revenge.

    Once again what is happening to the people of Gaza befalls them because of who they are, where they are. There are few effective voices speaking on their behalf to their neighbour who behaves without proportionality, kills civilians with impunity, calls it a tragedy and continues more of the same. Criticism of Israeli military action is muted for fear it will be undetrstood as anti-Jewish; not anti-semitic, the Palestinian people are also Semite people. And that obscene concrete dividing wall of hostility stands as a negation of every Palestinian hope, and as an affirmation of every Israeli citizen's fears. 

    When I pray Kyrie Eleison, I havn't a clue what mercy would look like between militant haters. When I pray for peace, I realise it presupposes justice, but whose justice, and what has to happen first? And what do I do with my anger, the inward pull towards demonising the powerful and overlooking the power of a militant enemy to provoke disproportionate retaliation, and the death of the innocent in order to further the cause of, well, justice apparently. |The US now wants to broker a cease-fire – why wait till around 100 Palestinian fatalities are recorded, most of them civilians and many children?

    I'm sick and tired of this. No that isn't a loss of hope; but it is an honest description of the weariness and wariness I feel when once again the cycle of violence is given righteous status on both sides, and the cost is borne by the innocent.

  • Time for a Poem 1. Mindful, by Mary Oliver

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    Time for a poem, which speaks for itself.

    Have a good (mindful) day all you bloggers.

    Mindful by Mary Oliver

    Everyday 
        I see or hear
           something
              that more or less

    kills me
        with delight,
           that leaves me
              like a needle

    in the haystack
        of light.
           It was what I was born for —
              to look, to listen,

    to lose myself
        inside this soft world —
           to instruct myself
              over and over

    in joy,
        and acclamation.
           Nor am I talking
              about the exceptional,

    the fearful, the dreadful,
        the very extravagant —
           but of the ordinary,
              the common, the very drab,

    the daily presentations.
        Oh, good scholar,
           I say to myself,
              how can you help

    but grow wise
        with such teachings
           as these —
              the untrimmable light

    of the world,
        the ocean’s shine,
           the prayers that are made
              out of grass?

    The photo was taken in Glen Dye, on a June day, when it was hard not to be mindful of the beauty, fragility and sheer isness of life.

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  • When the Preacher Takes his Stand and Falls Anyway

    I was preaching yesterday with some of the good Baptist folk up the Coast.

    After the service discovered talking, laughter and post service banter and not paying attention to direction comes at a cost to personal pride.

    Not having eyes in the back of my head didn't see the raised step behind me while walking backwards fully engaged in exchange of views on Dave Crowder's new CD Give us Rest.

    Preacher falls backwards, backside first, and his impetus enables him to almost complete a backward roll, with legs waving asymmetrically like an exercise class gone wrong.

    Great concern by the remaining congregation wondering if this is the Preacher demonstrating Dave Crowder's new CD Give us Rest!

    Preacher gets up quickly assuring the quick on the scene pastoral care team he is perfectly OK.

    Preacher explains he is quite used to this kind of thing as it happens to him nearly every Friday night.

    Detects puzzlement, laughter now combined with raised eyebrows and renewed pastoral concern for a fallen preacher.

    Quickly explains, plays five a side football on Friday nights and sometimes forgets he isn't Lionel Messi.

    Aaahhhh! That's all right then!

    Glad I wasn't preaching on "Let him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall…" 

     

  • The Things You Find in a Charity Shop 🙂

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    A multi-purpose floor standing tapestry frame. That's what it's called. And it ususally costs anything from  £70 up to the deluxe at £120 or more. This one is nearer the bottom of that range, but it does all I need it to do. It can hold any of my other four frames. It allows you to use both hands in stitching, one behind, one in front. Its adjustments make it fit any seat; it's portable, lightweight and made with good wood and substantial wing screws. What more could a man want, eh?

    I concede it looks like a wooden skeletal robot. And it could become a pretentious piece of interior design with a part worked tapestry on display to impress whoever. The good news is I bought it this morning in my favourite charity shop for £10, and it's virtually unused. I've a couple of larger pieces I want to work on so I'm hoping it will make the working easier and a little quicker. I don't mind the slow, time expensive work of creating something that has its own integrity. 

    Meantime one of my good friends has reminded me there's more to life than tapestry, and while my recent experiments in using colour, shape and image to express theology and explore textual and exegetical possibilities is all very well, it;s time I got writing again. As it says somewhere, or ought to, in the book of Proverbs, "Aye OK! Gie's peace!" But he's right – and part of my sabbatical time in July to August will be creating from a different kind of frame. I want to bring together much of my recent research, teaching and reflection into what I hope will be a publishable volume. So I will try to create a theological framework within which to work out a viable book proposal focusing on Trinitarian theology, kenosis, and the christian community as embodied pastoral care.     

  • Losing Ourselves because We’ve No Time or Space to Find Ourselves

    In 1968 in his book Faith and Violence, Thomas Merton wrote about the news as a stimulant,an indulgence bordering on addiction. What would he make of the News Channels and the pervasive news chatter of the cyber world?

    I have watched TV twice in my life. I am frankly not terribly interested in TV anyway. Certainly I do not pretend that by simply refusing to keep up with the latest news I am therefore unaffected by what goes on, or free of it all. Certainly events happen and they affect me as they do other people. It is important for me to know about them too: but I refrain from trying to know them in their fresh condition as “news.” When they reach me they have become slightly stale. I eat the same tragedies as others, but in the form of tasteless crusts. The news reaches me in the long run through books and magazines, and no longer as a stimulant. Living without news is like living without cigarettes (another peculiarity of the monastic life). The need for this habitual indulgence quickly disappears. So, when you hear news without the “need” to hear it, it treats you differently. And you treat it differently too.

    One of the marks of a prophet is prescience, knowing before it happens where events, trends and cultural habits will lead. Merton was deeply suspicious of media generated information, interpretation and opinions clothed with spurious authority. He worried about distortions of perspective by the sheer volume of news; he feared that historical consciousness was threatened with death by bloating; and he was never the naive monk cloistered in secluded ignorance of the world:

    " in addition to the sheer volume of information there is the even more portentous  fact of falsification and misinformation by which those in power are often completely intent not only on misleading others but even on convincing themselves that their own lies are 'historical truth'". 

    Monet-water-lily-pond-NG4240-fmAnd all that before the computer, the worldwide web, the mobile phone, Ipad, tablet and all other forms of connectivity which now contribute to the deluge of information that flows over and around us, denying time and space and unclaimed energy for analysis, critical distance, ethical and political reflection and considered thought and judgement.

    "Where is the life we have lost in living", Eliot asked. Another poet complained, "What is this life if full of care, we have not time to stand and stare"….. and wonder, and think, and dream, and remember, and be grateful, and begin to own the experience that is our life. When Jesus said, citing an older translation, "Come ye apart and rest awhile", he said it to people who were in danger of coming apart, to troubled spirits, torn apart by conflicting loyalties, minds and emotions over-stimulated and under nourished. 

    May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude has the important observation that one of the great frustrations of human contentment is 'unassimilated experience', when so much happens, and so quickly, we have no time to process it, understand it, adjust to it. So we spend our lives wrongfooted by the remorseless flow of a frantic world diluting our own experience, watering down the rich potential of an inner life that is responsive to and nourished by something other than external stimuli, mostly uninvited. 

    I got the Merton quotations from the smallest book in my library, my wee Pocket Merton, 7cmx11x1.5 cm of wisdom from a man who died 55 years ago.

  • The Cycle of Revenge in Jerusalem and the Murder of Our Young People

    "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem"

    "You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and a youth for a youth…."

    Muhammad Abu Khdair 16,

    Naftali Frankel, 16,

    Gilad Shaer 16, 

    Eyal Yifrach, 19,

    I didn't know the names of these four young people until the last few days.Now I have seen photos of their faces, and of their anguished families, and however distant, they are the faces of my family and children of my Father, they are our young people. What happens in communities who begin to believe that a youth for a youth is a thinkable option, a solution to anything? The murder of these young men diminishes us all as human beings. I feel depleted, bereaved, personally cheated of the blessing of four young people who embody hope for a more human future.

    The waste of so much potential and goodness is a blasphemy against the God we confess, whether we are Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Alongside the atheism of such acts is another attitude which requires its own discourse, Ahumanism. I'm not sure the word exists, but I use it to describe attitudes and actions that require a stronger word that inhuman. I define Ahumanism as a view of the world and of others that denies to any person their humanity, destroys human community by the evil ingenuity of hate inspired and hate inspiring violence, and revels in the shedding of blood as the discourse of despair.

    In protest, and in prayer I name these four young people; as a follower of Jesus, I pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And while I believe, passionately believe, "Blessed are the peacemakers" and that such are to be "called the children of God", I pray that such faith will be given grace to persist in the face of such Ahumanity as the murder of our young people to secure any human goal, political, religious, tribal or personal.

    Of such murderers I try to pray, and struggle to pray, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do…"

    For these young people and their families, I pray sharing their tears, may their pain and rage, their anguish and despair, their wailing and tears, become streams in the desert and the hope of blossom in the wilderness.

    All three faiths honour Isaiah and his vision of light for the nations. May the loss of these for young men be impetus for peace in Jerusalem. 

    Muhammad Abu Khdair 16,

    Naftali Frankel, 16,

    Gilad Shaer 16, 

    Eyal Yifrach, 19,

  • First Corinthians is Hard Going; It Can Be Explained for a Fee.

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    In 1987 Gordon Fee's commentary on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians was published. For near 30 years Fee on Corinthians has been the benchmark commentary for scholars and preachers. More recent commentaries bring the discussions up to date, build on contemporary hermeneutical models, reflect recent interests in socio-rhetorical and political readings of Pauline letters, and in the case of Thiselton's monumental commentary on the Greek Text, open up multiple doors in reception history, history of interpretation and hermeneutic horizons.

    But Fee remains a favourite for many, and for a variety of reasons. He is one of the finest exegetes of the last 50 years, an Evangelical serving within the academy with a passion for excellence in scholarship and integrity in dealing with historical material. He is a Pentecostal theologian whose work on pneumatology and christology in Paul is exhibited in two volumes of erudition harnessed to spiritual purpose, and scholarly activity in the service of the church. As if that isn't enough he is a trusted guide in the disciplines of exegesis as these underlie preaching that takes seriously the integrity of the text and the spirituality of communities committed to reading, learning and living Scripture.

    So it was with great sadness that we learned Professor Fee has retired from formal academic appointments, due to the onset of alzheimer's disease. Sadness because I have for 30 years sat at the feet of this Gamaliel, and learned from such a wise and penetrating mind, deeply and gladly how to handle sacred texts responsibly, and responsively. But I feel great gratitude too, for a life of such dedicated joy, positively revelling in New Testament textual criticism and exegesis. His commentaries on First Corinthians, Philippians and Thessalonians, his books God's Empowering Presence, and Pauline Christology, his several volumes of occasional essays, are exemplary works of scholarship, and his commentaries especially are like Emmaus walks for preachers and students and scholars – using them, the heart burns within as he opens the scriptures. Does that sound overstated? Maybe, but just a little. His co-authored book with Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, could easily describe the gift he has given to generations of students, and sum up his own life's work. It is all a first year text book should be - accessible, enthusiastic, affordable, readable, instructive and sensible.

    Eerdmans have just announced a revised edition of Fee on First Corinthians, the revisions carried out latterly by Professor Fee before his illness and subsequent retirement. Whether it will be a significant revision interacting with the vast cataract of Pauline studies in the past quarter century, remains to be seen. But in affection, gratitude and because I love the NICNT commentaries, I will use a recent book token to replace my old Fee, which was bought all these years ago and is so split it is more like a pile of pamphlets in a board folder – my edition was one of the first to be glued rather than stitched – sign of a decadent culture, glued books!!

  • Does the Tragic Lives Industry Trivialise Tragedy?

    I like to think I'm reasonably open minded, even to the point where I'm prepared to listen to people who say I'm not! As one feature of my alleged open-mindedness I have a fairly omnivorous approach to reading, so much so that I swing between discipline and dilettantism, between focusing on deep study or acting like a tourist with a camera more interested in capturing than enjoying.

    Still. I do find it hard to have much patience with that genre of literature now established in the book markets, "Tragic Lives". It isn't  only that I am impatient with those who tell their story for self-therapy, or skeptical with writers who tell all to encourage others, or cyncial about those whose drastic revelations aim to inspire those who think they've had it rough but just wait till you read this. I've thought all these thoughts, and by and large avoid the genre. But there's a more fundamental point I want to suggest as the reason for my ambivalence to the tragic lives industry.

    I think there is an enormous difference between stories told as an exhibition of human suffering, abuse, tragic loss, many of which are expoitative, of the writer or of the reader, and another kind of writing which explores the tragic through the lens of human sorrow. This second kind of literature can be illustrated by looking at several monumental achievements in writing, which set a standard of integrity and human authenticity so high that conveyor belts of imitiations are simply multiplied mediocrity. And I avoid entirely that other genre of the celebrity tells all about their briefly flickering moments of fame.

     
    Etty-hillesumThe Diary of Ann Frank, Etty; A Diary    , and the two vilumes of Elie Wiesel's Memoir, All Rivers Run to the Sea, and But the Sea is Never Full; these are another genre entirely, often referred to as Holocaust Literature. Such writing would never be described by the authors as 'tragic lives'. The shimmering characteristics of books like these include human hopefulness, moral courage, literary integrity and a declaration of self-worth and human value that has transmuted self-pity into a passionate commitment to the other.

    Etty Hillesum's account of 1941-43 is as tragic as they come, though not as she sees it. Here is her take on that inner ache we call sorrow – these are words of humane wisdom and emotional precision:

    "Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears his grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate. But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and instead reserve mostof the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of revenge – for which new sorrows will be born for others – then sorrow will never cease in this world and will multiply. And if you have given sorrow the space its gentle origins demand, then you may truly say: life is beautiful and so rich. So beautiful and so rich that it makes you want to believe in God."