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Everything beautiful in its time

Yesterday walking along the River Don the ducks were dancing. This is the perichoretic synchronised waltz performed at olympic sport level.

On a whim, I liked the sharp yellow and sharp grass against the blurred background of the river.

Then I saw the fabled ugly duckling, a tweenage swan wondering why it was such a big lumbering colourless bag of flurff. I was wishing I could enhance its self-esteem, and tell it " But you are beautiful" Not true though, but some day it will – here's the next photo of mum to prove it. Keep preening cygnet face, some day like your mum you'll see yourself reflected in the water and think "Oh ya beauty!"

Ecclesiastes 3.11 – "God has made everything beautiful in its time…." Yesterday was a good day.

26 July 2013
Alexander Stoddart, Sculptor in Ordinary to the Queen in Scotland: The Unveiling of Coila at UWS Ayr Campus

Yesterday I did a round trip to Ayr for the unveiling of a statue. The new and stunning UWS Ayr Campus was opened last year and the University had commissioned a work of art by Alexander Stoddart, Sculptor in Ordinary to the Queen in Scotland. Sandy chose as the subject, Coila, the Goddess of the poetic charms of Ayrshire. The encounter between Coila and Burns is told in his poem "The Vision"

"…To give my counsels all in one,

Thy tuneful flame still careful fan:

Preserve the dignity of Man,

with soul erect

And trust the Universal Plan

will all protect

And wear thou this…she solemn said,

And bound the holly round my head:

The polished leaves and berries red

Did rustling play;

And, like a passing thought, she fled

In light away.

From "The Vision by Robert Burns".

The finished statue is quintessential Alexander Stoddart and is "a thing of beauty and a joy forever. " Keats' often over-quoted line was entirely appropriate as the response of the audience to the unveiling, and to the aesthetic and affective impact of the statue.

Here are some photos:

This is now one of the most important pieces of statuary in the West of Scotland. The University's association with the West of Scotland, spreading over four campuses, is both widespread and significant as a source of educational, economic and cultural investment. The statue signifies " the spirit of dedication and diligence that University of the West of Scotland embodies." Those of us who attended the unveiling of Coila are happy to acknowledge that role, and proud to share in it.

Here is a photo of the sculptor in full flow placing the work in context:

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25 July 2013
The Text as Critic: What makes us and Keeps us Christian?

I've just spent a while reading Paul's two letters to the Thessalonian Christians. I'm reading Paul's letters in chronological order, and reading each of them in their entirety at a sitting. Paul could never have remotely imagined the centuries of scholarship and study, exegetical and expository activity, contemplative prayer and public reading, that would expose his occasional at times frantic writing to letter by letter scrutiny, word by word lexical analysis, syntactical disentangling, grammatical scrutiny, theological construal, contextual reconstruction, textual criticism and socio-rhetorical examination.

I've spent most of my life immersed in the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures, and Paul has been a conversation partner with whom I've argued, to whom Ive listened, whose company I've mostly enjoyed, whose tone of voice has often comforted, upset, inspired, interrogated, rebuked, encouraged and nourished my mind and heart. So I'm spending some time trying to hear once again what he is saying. You know how those few close friends we have who know us so well we can't kid on in their presence, they know us. And we know them too well to be daft enough to think we can wing it and present only a selected self? Paul is like that for me – actually, so is the Jesus of the Gospels, only more so, but that's another story.

Near the end of the second letter to the Thessalonians Paul writes one of his wish prayers, which comes as a softener for some of the hard things said and one or two hard words that follow. "May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." (2Th 3.5) Just now and then words like that clarify what it is that makes us and keeps us Christian. The way Paul writes the phrase " the love of God" is deliberately ambiguous – it's about how we read the genitive 'of' – is it the love of God for us, or our love of God. Likewise the steadfastness of Christ – the word means faithful, longsuffering, durable, persevering, indefatigable – it's a word that is much more descriptive of the real thing than those abstract nouns so loved by preachers, such as commitment, decision. Christ's steadfastness towards us enables our perseverance; his durable love enables us to endure; unless we trust the steadfastness of Christ towards us, it will be hard for us to live after and in the steadfastness of Christ.

The psychology of Christian obedience is shaped by profound gratitude for the love with which God loves us, and given resilience and durability by Jesus Christ whose own patience and perseverance endured the cross, and defeated death, and lives in resurrected power that makes new, creates grace, and recreates us.

I've never used this verse as a benediction at the end of worship. I'm not sure I've ever heard it used. Has anyone else? But next time….

"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ."

Yesterday I met my steadfast friend Ken for breakfast and a long catch up. His life is now divided between the United States and Scotland, and we try to meet up each time he is back here. Amongst our obvious shared passions are reading and books, and there is probably a book could be written about our book chasing adventures -like the one at the greasy B&B in Oxford. That too is another story. As was our attempt yesterday to eat a soft poached egg in a roll with some decorum, minimum mess, sitting across from each other and with barely controlled hysteria!

The point of this diversion is that amongst the sacraments of the steadfastness of Christ are those friends who are steadfastly there, who share our lives, and by whose kindness and faithfulness direct our hearts to the love of God. I have several such sacraments.

23 July 2013
I like this call to worship……

The following is taken from an order of service for First Baptist Church of Ithaca from July 7. I like the call to worship – its realism, biblical echoes and the prayer that says most of what most of us want to say most of the time.

And Moses said, "I am slow of speech and slow of tongue…"

All: But God sent him anyway

Jeremiah said "I am just a boy…"

All: But God spoke through him anyway

mary was perplexed by the angel's visit

All: But God still invited her to give birth to Jesus

God invites us to understand that we have gifts and we are needed;

whether old or young; tired or energetic; quick or slow;

whoever we are, however we are.

All: We hear your call O God. We have come.

PRAYER

Holy One we come to you, for we need healing.

We come to you for we need teaching.

We come to you for we need leading.

As we gather; as we sing; as we pray; as we listen; as we speak.

May we open ourselves to your balm, your blessing, your word,

Amen

The painting is a detail from Michaelangelo's Sistine Ceiling.

20 July 2013
Early Morning Ornitheology

I went out for a walk early this morning along to the village of Skene. We are enjoying a long hot spell in Scotland, which is in itself cause for thanksgiving, rejoicing, praise and feeling so much better about the world! Amongst the miraculous everyday accomplishments exhibited around us every day is the acrobatic low flying demonstrations by swallows skimming over the fields and any water that happens to be around. Seeing them reminded me of the poet of the Psalms noticing that even the swallow finds a nest in God's house.

A bit further along I came across a teenage pied wagtail. Not quite mature, and its markings not fully defined. B ut there it was sitting on a hay roll getting its face ready for the day.

It wasn't all that fussed about this part time wildlife paparazzi in a pink T shirt invading its privacy so I took a couple more

Then over the road I heard a birdong I've known all my life – a yellowhammer in full flow. It was at the highest point of the hedge showing off. My wee Sony optical zoom x10 gave this photo which isn't exactly National geographic but it'll do me – what a lovely moment when sound, sunshine, spectacular colour and many a memory all came together.

As that other ornitheologian said, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in
barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more
valuable than they?" Not a bad start to my day, on holiday and at home and enjoying all this.

19 July 2013
Fortingall, the Oldest Tree in Europe, and the Wisdom of a Life Well Lived.

On the recent jaunt to Kinloch Rannoch we diverted down to Fortingall to see Europe's oldest living tree, the Fortingall Yew. The trunk used to be 52 feet in girth and the tree has been around for 3,000 to 5,000 years. It sits at the end of a long country road that runs through a glen and the night we went to see it was sunlit, silent and still. We stood for a while wondering at the long human story witnessed by a tree that was there at least since the Bronze Age. The Exodus was still a thousand years away when this seed germinated; it was already two thousand years old when Jesus called Nathanael from his contemplative siesta under his mature fig tree; and around two thousand five hundred years in the growing by the time Columba's coracle bobbed up on Scottish shores.

The path leading to the tree is like a time line with several engraved slabs reminding those who walk therein of the human achievements and changes over centuries. And I guess standing on a sunny evening under the shade of a tree that has witnessed so much of the human story you are left to wonder, and ponder, at the miracle of human lives and the improbability verging on impossibility of the coming and going of the human story. I found this particular stone deeply moving in its simple witness to the humanising and civilising power of knowledge, learning, understanding and wisdom. In the celebration of wisdom in Proverbs 3 such life applied scholarship is described in an arboreal metaphor "She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her."

This ancient tree has outlasted around 70 human lifetimes of three-score years and ten. That longevity and 'still thereness' kind of puts the rest of us in our place. The connection between the tree with deep and ancient roots, human scholarship and accumulated wisdom, and the way we live responsibly now, came as a gentle nudge on a summer evening, in an old graveyard,at the end of a Scottish glen, looking at a winding path that led to this ancient witness to life as gift. And perhaps wisdom is knowing what to do with the unique privilege that is our own, individual, unique, precious life.

18 July 2013
Yehudi Menuhin, Music Making, Peace Making and Human Greatness

"The violin, through the serene clarity of its song,helps to keep our
bearings in the storm, as a light in the night, a compass in the
tempest, it shows us a way to a haven of sincerity and respect."Yehudi Menuhin

On a summer holiday in the 1970's my holiday read was Yehudi Menuhin's autobiography, Unfinished Journey. I had recently been given my first Classical LP, from Sheila, Brahms Violin Concerto. There are occasions in life when a new experience becomes a sort of epiphany, a glimpse of horizons never imagined, a listening that re-attune our ears to the beauty of sound, emotional responses we can neither control nor would ever want to, and a conviction of mind immediately recognised as life-changing – my first hearing of the Brahms Violin Concerto was each of these.

Yesterday on Classic FM I heard the newest CD of Brahms Violin Concerto, the finale, which still lifts me beyond wherever I am to a more hopeful place, just as the second movement combines for me sense of compassionate presence that both cares and teaches to care. Mind you, lest this becomes too much, the first bars of that second movement also remind me of the first line of Nice One Cyril, nice one Son!

Amongst the important legacies Yehudi Menuhin lefts the world was his passionate belief that music was a midwife of peace, a humanising surrender of self interest to something higher, a gift from God with the power to express our highest hopes, deepest tragedies, most far reaching hopes and most all embracing loves.

Menuhin's faith in music, and use of his own influence through his music, was given memorable and forthright expression in 1991 when he was honoured by Israel and addressed the Knessett in his acceptance speech:

This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of
life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very
last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the
awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It
is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a
code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and
achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet
deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling
amongst them.

There is greatness in such words, in such outspoken critique of his own people, and in such aspirations for a world made more hospitable, safe and humane. The man who played to the survivors of Belsen, and who absorbed hostile criticism for playing under Furtwangler in Berlin after World War II, pointing out that Furtwangler had remained in Germany throughout the entire Nazi period and had helped a number of Jewish people to escape capture, such a man spoke with a different kind of moral authority. Human greatness is an elusive and ambiguous value – but for me persitent peacemaking, joyful music making and fearless defence of the humanity of others are amongst the more obvious criteria.

17 July 2013
God isn’t a mountain, a partridge or a flower arranger.

Yesterday I was at one of my favourite Baptist places in the North East. I wanted to show some slides of our holiday as part of the all age worship and thought I'd introduce it by asking someone to tell me the meaning of the word metaphor. Thought we'd do some metaphorical theology at Sunday School level. One brave late primary grammarian gave me just the right answer: "It's something that's a bit like something else, but not the same as it." Oh yes – couldn't have said it better myself.

Then we looked at photos of Scheihallion – immovable and always there, a bit like God, but not the same as.

Next we looked at a red legged partridge with its chicks – solicitous, gathering them, protecting them from danger, a bit like God, that red legged partridge, but not the same as.

Finally a photo of nothing but flowers, hundreds of them – fragile, beautiful, transient, a bit like human beings, but not the same as – though God who is always there, and who cares for and comes close to, makes them beautiful, so how much more will he care for human beings who are worth so much more.

This metaphorical theology thing works OK so long as we remember God isn't a mountain, a partridge or a flower arranger. But God is rather permanent, eternally so; God is love that risks hurt for love of human beings, in Christ demonstrably so; and God is an artistic genius who creates beauty just for the sake of it, inexhaustibly so. And Gos is so much more.

The red legged partridge knows how to lead its chicks into camouflage – how many can you see in the photo? Clever things partridges – and that too is a bit like God!!!

15 July 2013
Jan Van Ruysbroek and Trinitarian Theology – Who? On What?

Years ago I began to read Evelyn Underhill's works on mysticism, and eventually read most of her published writing, her early Mysticism and her late Worship in the Nisbet Library of Constructive Theology, and then including retreat addresses, letters and essays. She reads as one writing from anothet time, now – but why should we be surprised, or think that in itself a disqualification of her as a spiritual writer still worth time and effort to study. Amongst the writers she introduced me to was Jan Van Ruysbroeck, whose name itself is likely to be unfamiliar to any but those interested in medieval mysticism. I must say I never followed up on Ruysbroeck after I'd moved on from reading Underhill. But recently he reappeared over my horizon.

I am doing some wider reading around Trinitarian theology including An Introduction to the Trinity by Declan Marmion and Rik Van Nieuwenhove. This is a very good book which for an introduction is theologically substantial and wide in its reach. There is a section on Ruysbroeck which I found fascinating, intriguing and in turns attractive and unsettling. Van Nieuwenhove referred to his own monograph, Jan Van Ruusbroec, Mystical Theologian of the Trinity and I've just started reading it. This is a study that seeks to redefine the essence of mysticism in terms of human transformation rather than immediate experience of God. I want to take some time to read carefully, assimilate quite unfamiliar ideas and weigh them against Scripture, tradition and experience, and do so in a way that is thoughtful, critically appreciative, humbly receptive and spiritually attentive. In other words to greet new ideas with courtesy, respect and intellectual modesty.

I will report back – for now I am enjoying reading an exposition of how spiritual theology if it is to be lived transformatively must be rooted in Trinitarian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity is diminished if the primary focus is on an exercise in speculative philosophy, or our best energies are expended on rational constructions and constantly revised defences of fixed ideas. The immanent Trinity overflows in an eternal love, the sovereign fredom of God, creating, entering and engaging with all that is as it has come into being through that same eternal creative purposes of the Triune God revealed in Christ through the Spirit.

Far from being a study of abstraction, Trinitarian theology invites openness to transformation as we are caught up into the life of the Father the Sone and the Holy Spirit, to share in that eternal fellowship of self-giving love, inflowing in returning joy, outflowing in constant gift. Ruysbroeck is a Trinitarian theologian for whom mysticism is nothing less than our awareness of conscious surrender to the transforming, renewing and cleansing grace of the God who calls us into relationships of intimacy, sacrifice and joy in God.

14 July 2013
The Return of the Prodigal Book and the Love of My Life

Three posts ago I reported the loss of Denise Levertov's little gem of a book, The Stream and the Saphhire. It went missing on holiday and I was intending to replace it. But my book has returned. It appeared on my desk while I was away at College. I'd like to suggest this was a miracle, an act of gracious providence, God in His mercy making good heartfelt loss, evidence that in the life of faith God intervenes on a daily basis with blessings unlooked for. Now I believe all of these possibilities.

The book which I left on a sun lounge had been picked up by Sheila and put for safe-keeping in her bag – I did say it was a small book. On second thoughts, Sheila found and retrieved my book, graciously looked after it, returned it and made good my heartfelt loss, and presented me with an unlooked for blessing. So my miracle, God's gracious providence, God's mercy in looking after me, and daily unlooked for blessings all coincide in Sheila.

12 July 2013