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S J Peploe Exhibition: An Uplift for a Dreich Day

It;s been a wet, wet, wete Aberdeen today. Started off tropical with drizzle and a warm breeze; The afternoon and into this evening unremitting rain. So we went into Aberdeen city this morning to the S J Peploe Exhibition at the Art Gallery. Superb! The Scottish Colourists are amongst my favourite artists, and the fact that they are Scottish adds to the pleasure of admiring, appreciating and enjoying their work.

This is a substantial exhibition with many of his best known paintings, gathered in one place, and exhibited in roughly chronological order, so that the paintings move from early, through experimental to maturity. Some of his latest art work is fabulous. The still life paintings, especially of flowers and tables and interiors are so subtle and atmospheric. Some of them I looked at for minutes on end.

I came away having had my eyes opened to how another person sees the world in the intimacy and immediacy of light and colour.

The exhibition is on till October. I'll be back – and the availability of a bright homely wee cafe with home baking, makes the visit all the more rewarding.

24 August 2013
Theological reading Groups: Theology as the Handmaid of Discipleship.

Apology for a Theological Reading Group.

For some time now I have been thinking about the point of
being a Christian. I don’t mean that it might be pointless. I mean, what is the
standpoint, the viewpoint, of the Christian mind as we encounter the
contemporary world, engage with surrounding culture, and work out what
Christian witness might sound like, look like and live like in a world such as
ours. There is a universe of difference between asking questions about world
peace, human suffering, consumer greed, climate change, human sexuality, macro-economics,
social justice, start and end of life questions, and all else that we live
with, think about, and encounter in the daily gift that is human life, our
life, – it makes a universe of difference when these issues are asked by a
Christian who believes their theology!

So what happens when we think of such issues as occurring in
a world which God created, where all people are loved by God, but a creation
broken by sin, into which God came in Christ as reconciling love, a world in
which resurrection and Pentecost are realities that shape the way we view
reality? In other words, the point of being a Christian, the viewpoint and
standpoint, is to bear witness to the
redemptive, renewing and reconciling love of God. The standpoint is beside the
manger, under the cross, beside the empty tomb. The viewpoint is to see the
world through the eyes of God who in Christ became flesh, dwelt amongst us,
died for our sins, rose again in the power of the Spirit, and is the one in whom
all things hold together.

So what difference does it make to believe our theology, to
live it, to breathe it, to think it, to confess it? It makes all the difference. In a culture impatient of ideas, dismissive
of truth claims and well shaped words, fixated on novelty, emotionally exhausted
by the flickering images of communicative technology, there is now an
imperative for Christians to follow after the one who said ‘Learn of me’ in a
discipleship of the intellect. A discipleship of the intellect is a commitment
to lifelong learning in the school of Christ.

Theology is not a tedious pastime for impractical
Christians. Theological reflection is to see the world from the point of view
of the God who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of our world. Theology is
prayer thinking; Christian thought is never more useful than when Christian
minds look out on the world, and from a Christian standpoint bear witness to
other ways of being, other ways of seeing, and other ways of living out this
wonderful gift that is our life in Christ.

Believe it or not, all of that is a way of saying I’d like
to see our churches create opportunities for those who wonder what it would be like to really
believe their theology. For followers of Jesus to come together to talk about a well chosen book or
issue, and ask, “so what does it mean to look at the world, this part of the
world, this human experience, from the standpoint of those who believe we are
all loved by God, that the world is broken by sin, and in Jesus Christ through
the power of the Spirit this astonishing God is making all things new”?

So I'm hoping to get such a group started, and with their permission report occasionally on what we are about. We are going to start by grounding ourselves in the very fine one volume systematic theology, Faith Seeking Understanding, Daniel
Migliore (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, Second Edition 2004).

22 August 2013
The Elusive Blessing of Being Untroubled

Let my doing nothing

when I have nothing to do

become untroubled

in its depth of peace

like the evening in the seashore

when the water is silent.

Rabindranath Tagore

Robbing your life of charm and variety

the taste of adventure, of space, spontaneity.

How cramped are your notions, formulas, judgements,

always condensing yet hungry for content.

Don't break down my defences, accept the human lot;

each road must take the direction of thought.

Karol Wojtyla

Two very different holy men, more holy still by never claiming to be. Unselfconsciousness is an essential disposition of love, compassion, mercy, faithfulness, truthfulness, in short, holiness.

Tagore is referring to our clinging to self importance, and addiction to finding our significance in activity, achievement, embossing our manufacturer's stamp on each day.

Wojtyla speaks passionately against playing life defensively, with risk aversion as our default, busily dumbing down the possibilities of life to the familiarly safe, and finding comfort in predictable stability. Instead he urges discovery of the potential in the newness of risks taken, and thereby recovering impetus towards the will of God.

How to live out of suich wisdom?

One of my favcourite photos, framed openness with life and growth flourishing at the centre.

21 August 2013
The Anguish of Egypt, and a Prayer to God the Father ” from whom every family on earth is named.”. (Eph 3.14-15)

This prayer was written for worship in Crown Terrace Baptist Church, Sunday past.

The news from Egypt continues to be distressing, and solutions and resolutions farther away than ever.

You are invited to pray this prayer.

Prayer for Egypt

God the Father of all Nations, in the ancient stories of
Israel and the Church,

the great story of your love, justice and mercy has been
told.

You brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage.

Lord we pray today, now, for the people of Egypt.

We have seen the pictures of lethal exchange,rocks and
bullets, rockets and tear gas.

We have heard the arguments about numbers of casualties,as
if the statistics have no human reality.

We have seen mosques used as fortress and refuge,besieged
and stormed,

that which is holy and safeturned into a place of death and
terror .

And our hearts cry out for the people, children, mothers and
fathers,

You are the God of the oppressed, the poor and the
suffering,

Liberating God, the oppressed you set free by your power.

God of Justice, the
poor you fill while the rich you send empty away.

God of mercy, the suffering you comfort, and befriend in the
comp anion ship of mercy.

Into the cauldron of hate, fear and violence, pour your
Spirit of justice, mercy and peace.

Response Together

He has shown you O
man what is good, and what does the Lord require of you,

But to act justly,
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Creator God, Lord of History and God of Hope,

we recognise the mixed blessings of TV and Twitter,

with their immediate images of conflict

with blood stained shirts,rows
of bodies,

faces wild with rage
or crushed in despair.

As followers of Jesus the Prince of Peace,

we have no right to hide from the reality of such suffering,

no remit to close our eyes to the cruelty of power out of
control,

no excuse for switching stations to the fantasy of Reality
TV

to escape the true reality of other people’s suffering.

Lord in our own words, actions, attitudes, make us
passionate for justice,

practitioners of mercy, and humble followers of Jesus crucified
and risen;

Not just card carrying Christians, but cross carrying
disciples,

a resurrection people of hope living in the power of the
Spirit.

Amen

19 August 2013
The Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, the Statue of Liberty, and the Founder of Apple.

The word is there are calls to build a statue of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, the size of the Statue of Liberty. The significance of Steve Jobs for radical developments in computer technology, and therefore his contribution to communication, business, education, and the global reach of socially interactive culture is so self-evident it hardly needs arguing. When it comes to technological pioneering, ruthless leadership, intuitive business nous at genius level, there are not many who begin to compare with Steve Jobs as a giant in the land.

One of the biblical habits of mind, cultivated over a life of preaching and reflection on the interface of scripture and culture, is to question whether there are parallel histories and narratives in the Bible to some of the big stories of our time. Where in the Bible are there stories of massive statues built to honour people of power?

The young cultural critic, name of Daniel, living in Babylon, found himself in a hard place when Nebuchadnezzar had one of his anxiety dreams. Those who hold absolute power are subject to anxiety dreams occasionally I guess. Like all ego worshipping tyrants King Neb took offence at the limitations of human knowledge and ordered all the wise people to be executed because no one could interpet his dreams. Which is where Daniel came in, and sensed the dangers of oversized statues and overgrown egos. In Daniel 2, Daniel teaches the CEO of the Babylonian Empire a lesson in history and the importance of the historical perspective for Imperial policy.

But by chapter 3, Nebuchadnezzar's ego is injected with steroids and he has the biggest statue of the Empire built, made of gold, erected on a huge flat plain and visible for miles.In his dream the big statue only had a head of of gold, but that seems to have gone to his head; he forgot the rest was made in descending order of value and durability all the way down to the feet of clay. So his ego has morphed into a 90 foot golden statue. And at that point his ego is fed by an adrenalin rush of hubris, inordinate pride, arrogant self-determination, the will to power gone to seed.

Which brings me back to the Statue of Liberty, and Steve Jobs. The Statue of Liberty stands 111 feet from heel to top of head, 21 feet taller than King Neb's. So a statue of Jobs that was 111 feet would be bigger than the biggest biblical statuary proportions. That has to make us pause, and think, about the power of a marketing brand in the service of empire.

Much more could be said – and in a laeter post it might be interesting to reflect on Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, a fiery funace, and the defiance of three other young cultural critics who recognised the dangers of a society where you are asked to sell your soul to the market, commanded to buy into the mindset, and threatened with dire consequences if you don't dance to the tune of the empire. Daniel 3 is a text for our time – I feel a sermon coming on……

You can read more about the plans for Steve Jobs' memorial here

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/16/steve-jobs-statue-campaign_n_3765822.html?ncid=wsc-ukhf-tech-headline

19 August 2013
George Herbert Week (V) Start the Day with a Metaphysical Poet

Some of us are morning people, others reach their most alert a bit later than the day, and some work best at the hours of changeover, after 10 o'clock at night. In Christian spiritual practices first thing in the morning, or at least soon after waking, which may not be early morning, has often been considered moments which firstly and rightly belong to God.

George Herbert was a parish priest, and a man of intense if refined piety. His collection of poems contains a number which I use now and then as prayers, including Matins, his morning prayer poem. (Incidentally I have just read it, and in the background had put on a CD by Kiri Te Kanawa, Ave Maria – the track playing right now is Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring – words that Herbert could have penned and would certainly have owned)

Here is Herbert, beginning his day; there are worse ways to start.

My God, what is a heart?
Silver, or gold, or precious stone,
Or star, or rainbow, or a part
Of all these things or all of them in one?

My God, what is a heart?
That thou should'st it so eye, and woo,
Pouring upon it all thy art,
As if that thou hadst nothing else to do?

Indeed man's whole estate
Amounts (and richly) to serve thee:
He did not heav'n and earth create,
Yet studies them, not him by whom they be.

Teach me thy love to know;
That this new light, which now I see,
May both the work and workman show:
Then by a sun-beam I will climb to thee.

George Herbert

Photo taken from our back window on a blustery Spring morning.

17 August 2013
George Herbert Week (IV) The Brittle Crazie Glasse of the Preacher

The Victorians knew how to produce a book as a work of craftsmanship. I have three very different old editions of Herbert's poems. Here is one of them published in MDCCCLXV – that would be 1865.

To be honest, I now discipline myself not to buy others and it would take something very special to tempt me to buy yet another edition.

I mean, I have the Cambridge critical edition which is a simply fabulous production, replete with learning and edited by someone whoknows the poems both intimately and critically;

the Everyman hardcover which also has fine notes, an excellent introduction and is produced in a series renowned for quality paper, printing and binding;

Tobin's Penguin edition is now 20 years old but remains a good, handy reference.

Patrides' older Everyman paperback is still the one I carry around and the most annotated of the ones I own;

even the small Everman pocket edition is a lovely volume, and the one I use when I read Love (III) at Communion.

And then there are the three Victorian editions.

For years now Herbert has been for me both a research interest and a favourite source of spiritual and intellectual stimulus. I've plenty other poetry interests but for reasons not easily explained Herbert is the one I have pursued with most energy, and is certainly the poet on whom I've read the most scholarly literature – (and spent the most money)

Here's one of my favourite Herbert poems – as a study of the spiritual psychology of the preacher, and the pastoral theology of preaching it offers a quite different take from the homiletical plot, narrative theology, post-modern hermeneutics and contemporary expressions of informal and IT communication. Instead it honours humility, reverence, availability to the light that shines through the brittle crazie glass that is the preacher, a window of grace. The appeal is to the conscience, the heart, the will – yes, Herbert understood the transformative core of faithful, and faith-filled preaching.

             THE WINDOWS.

LORD, how can man preach thy eternall word ?

He is a brittle crazie glasse :

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford

This glorious and transcendent place,

To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,

Making thy life to shine within

The holy Preachers, then the light and glorie

More rev'rend grows, and more doth win ;

Which else shows watrish, bleak, and thin.

Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one

When they combine and mingle, bring

A strong regard and aw :  but speech alone

Doth vanish like a flaring thing,

And in the eare, not conscience ring.

15 August 2013
Wildlife at Westhill – All Creatures Great and Small.

As an interval during George Herbert week here are a couple of photos taken at opportune moments. The first is of a young Sparrow Hawk which collided at speed with our glass patio doors.

It came round from unconsciousness, got to its feet, swayed drunkenly for a minute, looked me straight in the eye and said, "Where the H*** did that come from?"

And after this stunned adolescent learner flier recovered, and tidied up its language, it had a look at itself in the glass and thought, " Lookin' good – but won't do that again!"

Then early this morning I looked out the same patio windows and saw the biggest crane fly in the world flying over our house. (better known as daddy long legs)

Daddy Longlegs

By Ted Kooser from Flying at Night Poems, 1965-85, Pittsburgh Press.

Here, on fine long legs springy as steel,

a life rides, sealed in a small brown pill

that skims along over the basement floor

wrapped up in a simple obsession.

Eight legs reach out like the master ribs

of a web in which some thought is caught

dead center in its own small world,

a thought so far from the touch of things

that we can only guess at it. If mine,

it would be the secret dream

of walking alone across the floor of my life

with an easy grace, and with love enough

to live on at the center of myself.

This daddy long legs wasn't walking on a basement floor – it was attached to the patio doors spreadeagled as if pinned by an entomologist. Such fragile transience.

15 August 2013
George Herbert Week (iii) Trust, the Fusion of Humility and Confidence

(George Herbert's Church, Bemerton)

George Herbert's hymns are so old fashioned they are almost forgotten, not just out of favour but out of sync with
current taste and preference. His poem King of Glory, King of Peace recalls a spiritual atmosphere and
intensity of devotion requiring more of us than our usual contemporary
attempts at dumbed down intimacy and informal conversation with One who is Holy
Love, both transcendent and immediate.

It's a hymn best sung in a cathedral, a place where beauty and light, architecture and acoustics, give visual and aural expression to the same sentiments of devotion. And it should be sung with that restrained politeness that in Anglican spirituality comes near
to the spiritual quality of courtesy and quiet gratefulness, not
spiritually greedy or emotionally ambitious, but showing that quality of
balance that makes Herbert's poetry such a fine example of what he
himself called "my utmost art".

The structure of the poem is both simple and flawless; the rhythm is as easy as breathing; the only word of more than two syllables is 'eternity's', and it's always reckless to assume such conceits are unintended in Herbert – the longest word for the vastest concept; Praise, thankgiving, petition, confession and dedication are forms of prayer represented in lines that are brief arrows of devotion; and the encounter is intimate without being familiar, the personal pronouns of address showing the fusion of humility and confidence, which together make up trust. It is a beautiful hymn, a technically brilliant poem, and one of my favourite personal prayers:

King of glory, King of peace,

I will love thee;

and that love may never cease,

I will move thee.

Thou hast granted my request,

thou hast heard me;

thou didst note my working breast,

thou hast spared me.

Wherefore with my utmost art

I will sing thee,

and the cream of all my heart

I will bring thee.

Though my sins against me cried,

thou didst clear me;

and alone, when they replied,

thou didst hear me.

Seven whole days, not one in seven,

I will praise thee;

in my heart, though not in heaven,

I can raise thee.

Small it is, in this poor sort

to enroll thee:

e'en eternity's too short

to extol thee.

14 August 2013
George Herbert Week (ii) Making Drudgery Divine

Amongst the more amusing forms of serendipity is to do a search on Amazon. A search for the more recent books published on George Herbert is a case in point. As well as the 17th Century priest poet there are works by the American social philosopher and psychologist George Herbert Mead, himself an influential thinker around areas of pragmatism and social behaviour. The juxtaposition of Anglican country parson and a philospher contemporary with Tiffany Glass and Art Nouveau is odd enough. But then a few items further down come books about George Herbert Walker Bush, previous President of the United States, and father of the other George W Bush who was also U S President, and the inevitable collision of ideas that happen when world views are a couple of universes away from each other.

I'll get to the point in a minute. Amongst my favourite books on the Bible and Art is Painting the Word by John Drury. That is a fine book which opened up a lot of windows when I was trying to get a handle on the role of Art as a form of biblical exegesis and as evidence of how biblical texts were received and interpreted through the centuries. So when I put in George Herbert and came across the social philosopher and the two previous Presidents, I also discovered that John Drury has a full length monograph coming on the poetry of George Herbert. The description on Amazon says:

For the first time, John Drury convincingly integrates the life and poetry of George Herbert, giving us in Music at Midnight the definitive biography of the man behind some of the most famous poems in the English Language.

That I think is saying too much too soon. Others have convincingly integrated the life and poetry of Herbert, including Amy Charles, Helen Vendler and my favourite by James Boyd White, "This Booke of Starres". Still, a New Testament scholar who is immersed in Christian Art and Christian text, and who has spent decades reading and working through Herebrt's "The Temple", is a good choice of critic and expositor. So I'm looking forward to reading this latest addition to some of the more thoughtful and accessible treatments of Herbert's "utmost art".

Here's another of the better known poems, familiar to those who still sing old hymns, and for whom daily holiness is found in the ordinary services and courtesies of human exchange:

Teach me, my God and King,

in all things thee to see,

and what I do in anything

to do it as for thee.

A man that looks on glass,

on it may stay his eye;

or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

and then the heaven espy.

All may of thee partake;

nothing can be so mean,

which with this tincture, "for thy sake,"

will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause

makes drudgery divine:

who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

makes that and the action fine.

This is the famous stone

that turneth all to gold;

for that which God doth touch and own

cannot for less be told.

13 August 2013