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"Our minds are constantly trying to bring God down to our level rather than letting him lift us into levels of which we were not previously capable." I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with that sentence even before finished reading it; and then nodding in full affirmation once I had read it through, and thought about it. Our capacity for life, for love, for God, is not so much a given finitude, nor an inevitable constraint of limits due to our incapacity as human beings; it is our anxious clinging to the familiar, our privileging of our past experience as criterion for what is possible, real and significant. There is comfort in reaching a plateau with the hard work and the upward climb behind us; the temptation to settle for what we have, to settle where we are, to settle in the now and allow the present to determine the future. The known is secure; the familiar is reassuring; and both these attractive complacencies remove from our lives one of the essentials of faith, risk.

Christian Wiman, quoted above, goes on to say something which is crucial for our spiritual health and human fulfilment: "What might it mean to be drawn into meanings that, in some profound and necessary sense, shatter us? This is what it means to love."  To love God, to love another person, to love people, to love the world, and yes, to truly and completely and honestly love ourselves, are risks which carry within them not only the potential but the certainty of loss, pain, suffering and wounds, maybe even death. Those same risks carry within them not only the potential but the certainty of gain, joy, companionship and healing. And therein lies the choice, insulated safety with the familiar, or exposure to risk by being open to that which might shatter us, the transcendent.

At least that's what it would be like if it weren't for that mysterious, disruptive, compassionately sovereign and unpredictably tough movement in our hearts and in the world that we call grace, the grace of God. "There but for the grace of God go I" is familiar cliche. Just as true to life, and far less comforting is the confession, "Here but for the grace of God I would stay". To add cliche to cliche, old John Newton knew a thing or two when he wrote, ''Twas grace that brought me safe thus far / and grace will lead me home." And home isn't here, home isn't what we merely settle for, or settle into. Home is where God is taking us, and the journey isn't finished, the destination isn't reached. Instead of bringing God down to our level, God calls us to follow to levels beyond our present capacity, and God draws us into meanings that will shatter us because that is what love does. And in that creative process the shattering allows us to grow out of the carapaces of limiting habit, complacent achievement and comforting safety. That Love which calls for an answering, risk-taking love draws us out of the known to the unknown, out of security to risk, and out of contentment with stagnation to drink at the wells of that living water which is inexhaustible, life-giving and will sustain us on the way home. And in all the senses that matter, the true home of the human heart is in God, in whose image we are created, and into whose eternal love we are called.

This photo of Scheihallion was taken at Easter when we were on holiday at Loch Rannoch. The cloud obscures much of the mountain, but shows enough to tempt the climber. My son Andrew and I climbed it later that day, and neither of us climb Munros often enough for it to be a dawdle! But the view from the top, the exhilaration of climbing, the shared flask of coffee, the humbling awareness of those much fitter than us who passed us on the way up, and the long descent with legs beginning to ache but an inner glow of gladness, made for a satisfying day. And no amount of viewing with binoculars or photographing this majestic Scottish mountain from the safety of distance compares with the hard work of climbing it, encountering it, and allowing it to become part of the air we breathe and the memories that make us who we are.

"Our minds are constantly trying to bring God down to our level rather than letting him lift us into levels of which we were not previously capable."

 

 

 

The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe

Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Wild air, world-mothering air,

Nestling me everywhere,

That each eyelash or hair

Girdles; goes home betwixt

The fleeciest, frailest-flixed

Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed

With, riddles, and is rife

In every least thing’s life;

This needful, never spent,

And nursing element;

My more than meat and drink,

My meal at every wink;

This air, which, by life’s law,

My lung must draw and draw

Now but to breathe its praise,

Minds me in many ways

Of her who not only

Gave God’s infinity

Dwindled to infancy

Welcome in womb and breast,

Birth, milk, and all the rest

But mothers each new grace

That does now reach our race—

Mary Immaculate,

Merely a woman, yet

Whose presence, power is

Great as no goddess’s

Was deemèd, dreamèd; who

This one work has to do—

Let all God’s glory through,

God’s glory which would go

Through her and from her flow

Off, and no way but so.

 

  I say that we are wound

With mercy round and round

As if with air: the same

Is Mary, more by name.

She, wild web, wondrous robe,

Mantles the guilty globe,

Since God has let dispense

Her prayers his providence:

Nay, more than almoner,

The sweet alms’ self is her

And men are meant to share

Her life as life does air.

  If I have understood,

She holds high motherhood

Towards all our ghostly good

And plays in grace her part

About man’s beating heart,

Laying, like air’s fine flood,

The deathdance in his blood;

Yet no part but what will

Be Christ our Saviour still.

Of her flesh he took flesh:

He does take fresh and fresh,

Though much the mystery how,

Not flesh but spirit now

And makes, O marvellous!

New Nazareths in us,

Where she shall yet conceive

Him, morning, noon, and eve;

New Bethlems, and he born

There, evening, noon, and morn—

Bethlem or Nazareth,

Men here may draw like breath

More Christ and baffle death;

Who, born so, comes to be

New self and nobler me

In each one and each one

More makes, when all is done,

Both God’s and Mary’s Son.

  Again, look overhead

How air is azurèd;

O how! nay do but stand

Where you can lift your hand

Skywards: rich, rich it laps

Round the four fingergaps.

Yet such a sapphire-shot,

Charged, steepèd sky will not

Stain light. Yea, mark you this:

It does no prejudice.

The glass-blue days are those

When every colour glows,

Each shape and shadow shows.

Blue be it: this blue heaven

The seven or seven times seven

Hued sunbeam will transmit

Perfect, not alter it.

Or if there does some soft,

On things aloof, aloft,

Bloom breathe, that one breath more

Earth is the fairer for.

Whereas did air not make

This bath of blue and slake

His fire, the sun would shake,

A blear and blinding ball

With blackness bound, and all

The thick stars round him roll

Flashing like flecks of coal,

Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,

In grimy vasty vault.

  So God was god of old:

A mother came to mould

Those limbs like ours which are

What must make our daystar

Much dearer to mankind;

Whose glory bare would blind

Or less would win man’s mind.

Through her we may see him

Made sweeter, not made dim,

And her hand leaves his light

Sifted to suit our sight.

  Be thou then, O thou dear

Mother, my atmosphere;

My happier world, wherein

To wend and meet no sin;

Above me, round me lie

Fronting my froward eye

With sweet and scarless sky;

Stir in my ears, speak there

Of God’s love, O live air,

Of patience, penance, prayer:

World-mothering air, air wild,

Wound with thee, in thee isled,

Fold home, fast fold thy child.

 

This prayer was prepared for Advent worship and used in several churches throughout Advent when I was preaching. The Isaianic promise about the child who is born remains one of the most magnetic visions of a world redeemed from ruthless greed, re-educated from arrogant ifnorance to life giving wisdom, and pacified by conciliating love rather than brutal power. For a world like ours, Isaiah remains a resource of hope, and an affirmation of possibility that God is neither silent nor complacent over the brokenness and recalcitrance of human existence.

 

O come let us adore him

Mighty God, in Jesus your Son, through your Holy Spirit,

you have made yourself known to us as Father. 

We praise you for the love that eternally flows

between Father, Son and Spirit;

your love has overflowed in creative purpose,

bringing into being all that exists.

O come let us adore him

 

Everlasting Father,

we thank you for the gift of our own lives,

for daily bread, clothing and a home.

You have called us to be your children,

and we praise you for your faithfulness,

and for the untiring mercy and goodness

that follows us all the days of our lives.

We look on our world,

its beauty and brokenness,

its wealth and impoverishment,

the light and the darkness,

and we pray that your kingdom may come

and your will be done on earth.

For every act of forgiveness,

every word of reconciliation,

every look of compassion,

every generous gift,

every attempt to heal,

every step taken towards peace and justice,

every tear turned to laughter,

we praise and adore you.

O come let us adore him

 

 

Wonderful counsellor,

 teach us to keep in step with the Spirit;

to let ourselves be taught about the things of Jesus,

and to be open to the strength and power you give

that enables us to follow faithfully after him day by day by day.

Give us wisdom and courage

to live in a world with more questions than answers;

teach us the humility to listen,

patience to understand

and compassion to care,

before we blurt out our words,

so that when we speak of Jesus,

when you speak through us,

we do so as sinners saved by your grace,

as beggars telling others where to find bread,

as fellow travellers whose own footsteps are uncertain.

For the guidance and gift of the Wonderful counsellor

we praise and adore you. 

O come let us adore him

 

 

Prince of Peace,

you came as light into the darkness of our world;

the light shines and the darkness has not overcome it.

By love you confronted hate,

by peace you disarm violence,

by service you undermine power,

by forgiveness you dissolve the toxins of enmity,

by resurrection power you give new life.

Teach us your followers to be people of peace;

create peace in our hearts,

pervade peace in our homes,

establish peace in your church,

pour peace into your world.

And by peace more than the absence of hostility,

but the presence of shalom, goodwill, health and justice,

room to grow and flourish in freedom.

In the coming of the Prince of Peace

these things are no longer a transient pipe dream,

but the beginning of the fulfilment of eternal promises

for which we praise and adore you

O come let us adore him

 

The photos are –

'Yellow', taken looking out beyond Johnshaven in June on the Montrose Road.

'Mirror', taken on the Fort William Road late November.

'Sheila' taken walking in Glen Dye in May 2012

'Horizons' taken at Loch Rannoch in June

I wasn't sure I liked th poem below when I first read it. It's in Marva Dawn's Truly the Community p 215. It seemed overstated, an ideal rather than a relationship, a tone of too good to be true, and too sweet to be wholesome. Until I got to the last four lines and the too good to be trueness was proven to be true. Grace is too good to be true, resurrection the kind of impossibility that gives miracles a bad name, and Hilarity…Well it was the word hilarity that clinched it – this is a poem that asks us to think of caring, friendship, community not as human projects, but as the outcome of love incarnate, new creation through resurrection, and real community a grace enabled gift that creates new conduits of grace. Many of which flow towards us in the taken for grantedness of genuine love that is about presence, action and the faithfulness that makes the presence constant and the actions reliably fitted to those blessed to receive them.

With Gratitude

You said

"Call us, anytime you need us",

and I felt at home in your words.

I poured out my grief,

and you hugged me.

I told you my fears,

and you prayed that I would sleep protected.

I expressed my confusion,

and you helped me sort out the parts.

I tried to face my ugly self,

and you kept on caring.

I gave you my pain,

and you gave me a kiss.

How can I thank you?

How do I express this awareness

that I have found a home in your love,

that I've been adopted by your grace?

It's like the Resurrection, promising life

and healing and Hilarity.

It's just that Easter

is incarnated in your care.

The photo of beach cobbles was taken on Inverbervie beach – this is one way of taking them away and enjoying them without plundering the beach. There's a random harmony of cobbles washed into relationship with each other.

I went to the pub today with my son Andrew to watch the Manchester City v Arsenal game. As we were watching it a Christmas tree walked in. It was soon joined by a silver sequined star, a middle eastern backpacker in scarlet and yellow silk and a few shepherds. Seems the nativity and the panto came together in a performance later today, but the guys decided to come to the pub and watch the football first.

It was a hilarious sideshow watching a nativity play and panto combining with the roles of football supporters and pub regulars enjoying a beer. Just now and then, all the pre-packaged laughter, the incessant battering of our retail instincts, the repetitive strain syndrome of millions of index fingers punching PINs, the overdone music, ubiquitous decorations and overloading of food expectations is exposed as sadly unreal, and the real thing emerges. Folk enjoying themselves, engaged with Christmas but able at least for a while to stand outside the addictive magnetic pull for just long enough to have a drink, watch a match, and do so with no sense of incongruity that they are really, or is it virtually, a christmas tree, star, shepherd, wise man or whatever.

I suppose if I wanted to turn this into a wee homily I could say that even then, in the reassuring incongruity of that pub, in the company of those nativity panto actors, and while watching a game that finished 6-3, there was still no sign of that baby in whom infinity was dwindled to infancy. Maybe in the laughter, the good natured engagement with the story to the extent of dressing up and telling the story, for me, that will do for now. I'm glad they came.

Burne-Jones nativity is a favourite ever since I got a Christmas card years ago using this picture. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlQZyTF_LY

I've just watched this on a Sunday afternoon and rediscovered the meaning of sabbath:

The gift of life celebrated by celebrating the joy of humanity.

Eyes lifted above the mundane towards the future and our least selfish hopes

Voices raised together in praise, supplication and self-offering to that which is greater than us.

The renewal of hope by the eclipse of cynicism.

The sifting of our emotions and the repristination of our desires.

The costliness of excellence by disciplined gifts offered in the service of others.

Harmony of voice, vision and purpose in realising our greatest longings as human beings.

The performance of Beethoven's Ode to Joy here is, I use the word advisedly, awesome. And as an Advent connoiseur I resist the showy, the superfluous, the trivial and as much as I can of the consumerist sideshows. But this film clip performs on an Isaianic scale. Heaven.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo taken on Friday, from Stonehaven beach.

God's Mercy

Gods boundlesse mercy is, to sinfull man,
Like to the ever wealthy ocean:
Which though it sends forth thousand streams, 'tis n'ere
Known,or els seen to be the emptier:
And though it takes all in, 'tis yet no more
Full, and fild-full, then when full-fild before.