Living Wittily

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  • Isaiah 35 – Giving up Complacency for Lent

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    My Lenten reading is the work of one of the greatest poets in the Hebrew language. Pushed to discuss critical issues I am persuaded that Isaiah in its canonical form comes to us from at least two authors, and that 1-39 are pre-exilic and 40-66 are exilic but anticipating the end of exile and the return home. But the book of Isaiah as we have it is itself a work of great literary and theological power. Chapter 35 is one of those dream chapters in which the prophet talks into being a different kind of world and an alternative future. And some of the images in it and in 40-66 are of the essence of spiritual hopefulness and theological adventure.

    I have the privilege (I NEVER use that word lazily as pious cliche – always it is chosen with as much humility as I can humbly claim!) – I have the privilege of leading worship in one of our churches throughout the Lenten season. Lent is the time for spiritual re-orientation, or for an internal audit, or to go through a personal appraisal in our discipleship, a kind of continuing persoanl development review that is honest, thorough and forward looking. I think what we need to give up for Lent is our secular worldview. Now both those words are contested – secular versus sacred is way out of date as a meaningful distinction in a pluralist, multic-cultural, post-Christian society where spirituality is no longer disenfranchised just because it isn't theistic. And as for world-view – that sounds too much like meta-narrative and we all know how suspicious we have all to become of meta-narratives.

    Even granted those two strident disclaimers, I want to give up that secular worldview that is itself a form of intellectual, emotional and theological exile. Second Isaiah wrote to people for whom life had become wilderness, hope had dried up into a dessicated vague complaceny, and for whom any thought of finding home again withered under the sheer heat of circumstance and the weight of the status quo. How could it be any different? Where outside of political realities of power and economic pressures of oppression and recession, were there realistic possibilities of change. Politics and economics are human sciences that have no sense whatsoever of the transcendent, of realities more ultimate than them, of visions more permanent, or hopes more human, or dreams more desirable than the ones they peddle.

    And Isaiah says, "Thus says the Lord…". And from beneath the desert ,water gurgles up in glad contradiction of all the surrounding aridity and banality; and out of the sand crocuses burst into colours of purple, gold and white and we ask where the heaven did they come from!; and across the trackless waste of a culture which has spent the last century or three removing known roads, familiar paths and moral rights of way a new moroway is under construction. That's Isaiah 35, and that's his alternative worldview, one in which change is possible and promised; one in which the transcendent tears open our sealed this worldly way of looking at things. And yes, for all our cultural analysis and social theorising, Isaiah has little interest in arguing about the sacr4ed and secular, because it all belongs to God beside whom there is no other. Forget intellectual plea bargains; this is a prophet who tells it as it is because he believes that is exactly how it is. God makes deserts blossom; gurgling springs in the wilderness are the least of his miracles; and as for the motorway across the barren trackless terrain, the One who will one day declare in the words of the Word made flesh, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life…"

    Lent is about remembering that, living into it, and looking for the God of hope.

    (The photo is of the spring in Aberdeen Botanic gardens, a hidden source of irrigation that you only find if you listen and look for where the gurgling is coming from!)

  • Pancakes, Spirituality and Naive Lenten Dreams

    I like pancakes so much that it would be a seriously formative exercise in self denial if after tonight I gave up pancakes for Lent. My favourite bought ones are Sainsbury's, the large ones. My preference are home made as long as the pancake maker knows what they are doing:)

    Tonight I will have pancakes with savoury (crispy bacon and maple syrup) and then sweet with chocolate sauce or maybe ice cream and peaches..

    TO KEEP A TRUE LENT.

    by Robert Herrick


    IS this a fast, to keep

                    The larder lean?

                                And clean

    From fat of veals and sheep?

    Is it to quit the dish

                    Of flesh, yet still

                                To fill

    The platter high with fish?

    Is it to fast an hour,

                    Or ragg’d to go,

                                Or show

    A downcast look and sour?

    No ;  ‘tis a fast to dole

                    Thy sheaf of wheat,

                                And meat,

    Unto the hungry soul.

    It is to fast from strife,

                    From old debate

                                And hate;

    To circumcise thy life.

    To show a heart grief-rent ;

                    To starve thy sin,

                                Not bin ;

    And that’s to keep thy Lent.

    Robert Herrick isn't anthologised much except for a few of his devotional poems. This one echoes the more ancient poet Isaiah, in chapter 58 who gives a comprehensive agenda for any discussion about the meaning, fruitfulness and social transformation made possible by a Lent truly kept. Made me wonder what a national Lenten period would achieve? What would a Lent in which we gave up unethical food production look like in a country where Food Banks are the fastest growing charity and £1.5 billion of food is wasted annually, and in which the scandal of processed food produces its next chapter of consumer phobias and species indifferent meat labelling? Or if everyone above the average wage donated a week's salary to the NHS? If that seems impossibly daft, how about a national mauratorium for 40 days on all language that is oppressive, discriminatory or fear mongering?

    1576871487_01_pt01__ss400_sclzzzzzzz_v11_4There is a foolishness and unreality about such suggestions. But maybe our laughter at the bizarre and naive nature of such suggestions betrays a skeptical realism and lack of moral imagination so that the status quo is so privileged we cannot even dream of a more ethical alternative. Every year I tediously point out that Lent is a time for taking up as well as giving up. This year maybe I could do both with the one change – how about giving up on habituated cynicism and taking up a patient naivete? How about giving up a reality manacled by amoral realpolitik and taking up dreams which give freedom to the moral imagination? How about me, just me, deciding that on behalf of the nation, I will give up negative diminishing discourse and take up positive edifying words of encouragement, affirmation, welcome, comfort, hopefulness, peacemaking, relation building, kindness, mercy, and truth spoken in love?

    Pancake Tuesday is about recognising the gifts of life, and understanding that they are not all shared equally; that justice and mercy and freedom are not only core values of the Kingdom of God, but criteria of the good life lived Godward. As Jesus said, not the things that go into the mouth defile it, but the things that come out. Not the food we eat, but the words we speak. A true lent would mean replacing many of our habits of speech, parts of our discourse being converted, so that what comes out of the mouth doesn't defile, but are promises we keep, the truth we tell, the lives we enhance, the injustices we challenge, the love we articulate, and the compassion to which we give voice.

    And if what goes in does not defile, then bring on the pancakes, the maple syrup, the ice cream and peaches, the crispy bacon, and hot chocolate, but make sure the equivalent expense is put aside to do what Nehemiah said, "remember the poor".

  • St Palladius – Apostle to the Scots

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    St Palladius Episcopal Church nestles in Glen Drumtochty near Auchenblae. We spent a cold wintry afternoon driving over the Cairn O Mount and down to the Clatterin Brig, which has a really fine Cafe and restaurant. Which by the way, we always support as a local source of fine cake and coffee – paradise cake and shortbread yesterday for those interested in these things.

    Then we came through Glen of Drumtochty where the small loch was frozen in the middle, a silver grey disc with a dark peaty border, and almost invisble against it, a silver grey heron, standing disconsolately dreaming of a slithery takeaway. Earlier we saw the Red Kite patrolling for food up the hill, just as hungry but a much more impressive hunter, and the same camouflage as the red brown bird flew against a backdrop of heather and woods.


    PalladiusYou turn the corner and this church sits as an incongruous reminder of the saint known as the Apostle of the Scots. The bleak weather and the cold feel to the photo are however quite congruent with a saint whose life was hard, whose ministry was tough and whose sense of mission makes utter nonsense of the assumption that mission is a late comer to the theology and practice of the church. In the North East of Scotland the Light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

    I like old churches. They are reminders that we are the latecomers to the party, that the mission of the church is 2000 years in the making and may be another many a thousand years in the fulfilling. Because it is the mission of God, and is the realisiation in time and eternity of the reconciling love of the Eternal Triune God. In that mission, which the church is called to share, the righteous mercy of the God of grace and peace, works itself out in our history; and so we trust in the God of hope in whose purposes and power the ultimate hope of the creation rests, as it and we groan awaiting our redemption.


    DSC01163This stern old apostle gazes over the glen, with either serene patience or stoic indifference. Or maybe he glowers at the mess the world has become since his day and his time. That staff and mitre aren't the usual equipment for missionally challenged Baptists. Yet I wonder, for all our talk of strategy and resources, our plans and projects, our entrepreneurial enthusiasm and spiritual rationalising, I wonder if there is something we are missing in the courage and resilience, the willingness to suffer for the Gospel, the counter cultural offensiveness of 'in yer face' holiness, that characterised those earlier Christ-followers. I'm not appealing to a romaticised early Celtic whatever, but asking about the ongoing relevance for our cutting edge theology, of those ancient pioneers of mission who, unlike modern pretensions to the title, by their hardship and sacrificial faithfulness, earned the name apostle. Or so it seems to me as I look at this grey, lichen shaded statue of the Apostle to the Scots.   

     

  • Chris Huhne, Vicky Pryce and the impossible word of Jesus: “Judge not that you be not judged”

    "Judge not that you be not judged…" Like many of Jesus' sayings it's hard to see how to live that word consistently, constantly and faithfully. It isn't just that we all enjoy the moral high ground, the smug viewpoint from being right where we can look down on the moral failures or personal faults of others. And yes we like to see people get there come-uppance when the thin ice they were skating on gives way, or the web of manipulation they weave ensnares them in their own deceit of themselves and others.

    More than that, moral judgement and ethical distinctions, acknowledgement of the good and naming evil for what it is, are all part of the human experience of building a framework within which we can live with relative safety, with some hope of community and as a fundamental orientation of life that enables us to live in peace and co-operation. Law, morality and social structures presuppose our capacity as humans to recognise good, to define and guard against evil, to learn and adapt to that infinite number of circumstances, relationships and choices which make up the moral life of a person, a community and a culture.

    But I think I know what Jesus was getting at. As often as not Jesus saw self-righteousness as every bit as toxic as the self-despair of the guilty. Another rabbinic warning echoed by Paul, "Let him who thinks he stands safely take heed lest he fall…". One of the features of our own culture is the self-righteous tone of much news reporting of other people's wrong. Once someone is found guilty it's right that social disapproval, comment on consequences, evaluation of moral character, are recorded as parts of the ethical and judicial process which underpin a country's values, norms and legal system. Or so it seems to me.

    PAUntil I reflect on the current case of Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce, and I hear the word of Jesus again, "Judge not that you be not judged…." And I plead guilty. I do judge that the concatenation of self serving choices freely made by these two people, over 10 years, have been in a moral and social sense, disgraceful. I take the word to mean lacking in grace, toxic of goodness, corrupting of character, arrogantly dismissive of those standards of behaviour rightly expected of ordinary folk, and especially of those who seek the trust and service of public office. The escalation from speeding offence to perverting the course of justice and all out personal war is an intertesting example of the cumulative effect of wrong turnings – which is to get lost in the maze of our own making.

    Perhaps Jesus' words are not mere prohibition but dire warning. Judge if you must, but you'll be judged yourself. Condemn the liar and you condemn yourself every time you give the truth a body swerve. Mock the one caught speeding and condemn yourself when you rationalise your own in a hurry approach to life and justify depressing the accelerator further. It's hard to be morally clear eyed about others and a bit vague about our own failures – sawdust and plank come to mind. And yet. As this play goes into its second act, a second jury considers the motives and choices, the facts and the testimonies, the truths and evasions which run parallel to the corrosion of a relationship to the point where betrayal by the one leads to vengeance from the other, and all this publicly stated.

    And you know, I feel as much compassion as anger, but I do feel both. Dishonesty and deceit are not exhausted in deceitful acts. They are manifestations of something deeper in the character, betraying fault-lines in integrity, and a default menu programmed towards self-interest made more powerful by repeated usage. Lies engender lies, and trust dissolves in acid of our own making.

    "Judge not that you be not judged…" Maybe those words of Jesus are about cultivating self-knowledge, a right estimate of our own character, what is routinely called today, self-awareness. It is also I think a call to moral discernment, a way of looking at the world and at others, that is realistic not cyncical, with compassion as well as judgement, and that recognises the tragic reality of the human condition.


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    One of the most important Christian truths that should encourage both compassion and moral judgement is the doctrine of sin. That disruptive, subversive, deceitful reality that insinuates itself into hearts and structures, corrodes relationships and societies, and is of such lethal consequence that outraged Holiness responds with outrageous love, so that we see as P T Forsyth saw so clearly, "Justice, the true and only mercy…."

  • I to the hills will lift mine eyes, from whence doth come mine aid…..

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    The Scottish Psalms and Paraphrases were written out of a deep loam of spiritual passion and theological assurance. That theology could be stern, rendered inflexible by doctrinal rectitude, narrowed to the constraints of minds severely logical and tolerant mainly of Calvinism in its least tolerant forms. And pushed too far theological assurances and dogmatic certainty could lead to spiritual anxiety and an inner uncertainty about personal salvation and the demeanour of God towards this particular, and particularly undeserving sinner.

    But out of such theology there sometimes grew a spirituality and experience of God that often enough was a corrective to such fear of the face of God, and that could be like sunshine on a heather covered hillside. This Psalm. paraphrased in sometimes quaint syntax, is one of the treasures of Scottish devotion. For myself, I like a bit of quaintness to balance the banality and predictably prosaic translations of the Psalms in most modern translations. Bennachie in the background of the photo, taken in late autumn, can be seen from our house, and from almost anywhere in much of rural Aberdeenshire. It isn't a mountain, it's a hill, and when I look to it, I understand why the versifiers of this old Scottish paraphrase got it so right. When my life is hard and the wind blows in my face, and my eyes are cast down, when inner horizons are constrained and shadowed by low lying clouds of sadness, when the path is slippery from moss and rain on hard rocks and the cumulative weariness of the long walk weighs like clothing soaked in Scottish drizzle, "I look to the hills from whence doth come mine aid", and pray that "henceforth my going out and in God keep forever will."

    Psalm 121,A Song of degrees.

     

    1I to the hills will lift mine eyes,

    from whence doth come mine aid.

    2My safety cometh from the Lord,

    who heav’n and earth hath made.

    3Thy foot he’ll not let slide, nor will

    he slumber that thee keeps.

    4Behold, he that keeps Israel,

    he slumbers not, nor sleeps.

     

    5The Lord thee keeps, the Lord thy shade

    on thy right hand doth stay:

    6The moon by night thee shall not smite,

    nor yet the sun by day.

     

    7The Lord shall keep thy soul; he shall

    preserve thee from all ill.

    8Henceforth thy going out and in

    God keep for ever will.

  • Kindle Utility and the Beauty of the Book.

    Slowly, at first reluctantly and resistantly, but gradually and persuasively, I've begun to admit the usefulness, convenience and with the right book the fun and attractieveness of reading from my Kindle. In that one small device (bigger than the more recent versions already) I have Augustine's Commentary on the Psalms, Jane Austen's novels a growing library of leisure reading and maybe one day I'll try a more serious acadcemic book. We'll see.

    But for me there will always be books that cannot be Kindled. Books that are now lifelong companions, with a personal history decipherable in the underlinings, margin notes and memories of moments of illumination. Books I love to handle because they are beautiful objects in their own right, binding and font, paper and ink, stitching and smell, giving a book its presence, recognisable, familiar, visible and ready to be reached for. Books which are best enjoyed as page turning back and forward, ease of finding and inviting glance or gaze, making connections from there earlier in the text to here and the next place as the dotted line of thought is joined up.


    BovonAnd then there are the few books that deserve to be as expensive as they are. Beautifully produced, a joy to handle, works of art and craft, so that the importance of the contents is validated by the care given to the making of the book. Amongst my books are the volumes I own of the Hermeneia commentary series, and since they were first introduced the standard and distinctive quality of the production remains astonishing. And now at last the three volume commentary on Luke will be available in English in the Hermeneia series. This is the year of Luke in the Revised Common Lectionary, and over the year these volumes will find their way to my shelves – I've a birthday in February for a start.

    Eventually choices will have to be made about shelf room and that's where the Kindle wins every time. But for now, handling, reading and enjoying the art of the book remains a difficult to supercede pleasure.


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  • A Theology of Reading and the Stranger Christ Who Comes Alongside.

    The recent advert for the MacMillan Daffodil Donate an Hour appeal, computes the amount of time we spend doing things in an average lifetime. It throws up some "makes you think" statistics. 7,000 hours in supermarkets was one that surprised me till I thought about it. 280 days with a basket or a trolley and a wallet. That's more than a year of working days. And what Macmillan's are asking is just one hour; on average collectors bring in over £40 an hour, so the argument is persuasive. That's quite apart from the wonderful work MacMillan nurses do to accompany and support those who are in the later stages of illness from cancer. I don't need any more encouragement to give to this charity whose work I've witnessed first hand in numerous pastoral situations. Those who care for the dying carry out a ministry that has deep roots in the soil of Christian charity and medical comfort

    But it set me thinking about the time I spend reading. Not as much as I used to; not as much as I like to; not as much even as I need to. There are many other important and urgent calls on time, energy and attentiveness. This post is not an apologia for reading; I take the value of reading for granted as a formative, humanising, life enriching, socially informing, intellectually nourishing, morally challenging and educationally effective human  activity. What I am now researching is the theological importance of reading for personal formation, and as a pastime which requires an ethic of reading so that its formative power is genuinely free to challenge and subvert, or inform and affirm, what we know, what we ought to know, how we know it and crucially, what we do with what we know. Oh, and incidentally, "pastime" need not mean desultory non productive time, which has its own value – but a valid way for a human person to pass the time in ways that enhance their humanity and person).

    In other words, quite self-consciously and specifically as a Christian, I am interested in reading not only as an intellectual discipline, but as discipline which requires an ethic, a theology and an obedience to the word consonant with our obedience to the Word made flesh. Reading is a search for the Truth that in knowing Him sets free. Reading is a regularly recurring Emmaus journey trying to make sense of things and thrilled when the Stranger Christ comes alongside to rebuke, to expound, to accompany, and to

     

    break the bread of life once again. So whether theology or biography, poetry or dogmatics, ethics or novels, history or mystery, philosophy or art, what we read, how we read, why we read, and the immediate and durable effects of the acts of reading are highly significant in following faithfully after Jesus. As a Christian I am also and always a seeker, a listener, a student, with a mind that thinks, a heart that feels and a body that is a living sacrifice. Sotrying as hard as I can, and receiving as much grace as my life can hold, I am engaged in the life work of making this self holy and wholly acceptable to God, which is my reasonable service. Yes that's it, reasonable service.

     On the superficial and playful level I am a bibliophile. But in the deep places of the will, the heart and the mind, I am a lover of the One who took the scroll and read, and declared a manifesto for the transformation of the world. So I won't compute the number of hours I may have spent reading since those early days I worked through the bookcase in our farm cottage. A more important computation is what I have done with the reading, and what it has done to me, by the grace of God, and maybe occasionally by my own determined Emmaus walk. And how I have responded to the countless times the Stranger who is Christ has come alongside to teach, to accompany, and to take the bread and break it so that my eyes are opened in glad recognition, and I see differently, more truly and with something of the loving gaze of God on a world shocked back into life by Resurrection. 

  • A prayer for Dry, Parched, Cold, Feeble People!

    A prayer for Dry, Parched, Cold, Feeble People!

    Lord
    how much juice you can squeeze from a single grape.

    How
    much water you can draw from a single well.

    How
    great a flame you can kindle from a tiny spark.

    How
    great a tree you can grow from a tiny seed

    My
    soul is so dry that by itself it cannot pray;

    Yet
    you can squeeze from it the juice of a thousand prayers.

    My
    soul is so parched that by itself it cannot love;

    Yet
    you can draw from it boundless love for you and for my neighbour.

    My
    soul is so cold that by itself it has no joy;

    Yet
    you can light the fire of heavenly joy within me.

    My
    soul is so feeble that by itself it has no faith;

    Yet
    by your power my faith grows to a great height.

    Thank
    you for prayer, for love, for joy, for faith;

    Let
    me always be prayerful, loving, joyful, faithful.

    (Guigo the Carthusian, died 1188.)

     

  • The Treasure of the Snow

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    Every year when there's snow I enjoy the snow covered coffee table – it has about 9 inches of snow on top. I wanted to lift it into the living room snow and all, and sit there with a coffee while my photo was taken. This was not seen as a good idea and was not countenanced by the House Management. Pity. Might still do it if I'm in by myself. Anyway I rejoice in gently fallen snow that settles in carefully considered peacefulness, an accumulation of crystals of unique specificity, acting together in an informal architecture that is beautiful to contemplate.

    I mean contemplate. I've sat looking at the snow several times this week when I've been home, letting its peacefulness slowly penetrate a mind at times like a mental tumble drier, allowing the cold to penetrate and heighten awareness of heartbeat and rhythm, grateful for the dazzle of reflected sunlight, and gazing at the soft edged shapes that invite touch, but which I refuse to spoil by doing so. 

    The spirituality of snow would be a good title for a thin book exploring the theological significance of snow – miraculously maintained snow flake uniqueness yet transience; accumulated whiteness that dazzles to make us see; covering a multitude of sins yet also giving new shape to the landscape; and the capacity of snow to contain in crystallised geometry the water of life. And the latent opportunities for fun, snowballs, snowpeople (snowman is gender exclusive), sledging and skiing and snowboarding.

    Such a book might be entitled after Job 38:22  "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow". By the way that verse provided the title idea of Elizabeth Goudge's autobiograpy "The Joy of the Snow". It is a strange, beautifully writtten, gently interrogative account of her upbringing and writing career. 

    The photo below was taken of Smudge enjoying apres-ski hospitality.

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  • A Week of One Sentence Posts with a Photo 7

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    The time-changing revelation of God’s love comes to us not in the form
    of a doctrinal missive, but as the Incarnate Word, expressed not as an
    inanimate form or lifeless concept, but as a living, breathing speaking,
    acting, feeling, thinking person.  The only way to comprehend this
    subject is from the perspective of encounter – to behold the glory of
    the flesh-becoming Word, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

    Judith A Diehl, Review of Paul Anderson, The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel, (Fortress, 2012).

    I know. I cheated. TGwo sentences. But Diehl's point is too important to truncate it.