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Stating the obvious again – revision is good for the soul!

Having read what I wrote yesterday, I've made the corrections to spelling, spacing and grammar! Since I'm in the middle of marking I guess yesterday's effort before revision was a narrow squeak B1 – now at least it is securely that!!

It isn't that anything I wrote yesterday was unclear because of the typos – but literary carelessness easily erodes the credibility of the writer, as at a subliminal or conscious level, the reader notes the glitches in the syntax and suspects glitches in the content. But more than that – it is surely important to write with grace and accuracy, with precision and freedom, within the rules of language and grammar yet with creative and imaginative flair. So that factual statements are not undermined by inaccurate spelling; beautiful thought is not deconstructed by being expressed in carelessly shaped language; and persuasive encouragement is not contradicted by red pen marks all over the exhortation.

Of course the spell-check helps, and the wavy green lines – but stick to them all the time and language becomes standardised, those tricks of language and structure, the bending of the rules that identify originality, are flattened out into a prosaic properness lacking the very things that make writing interesting, memorable and worth the time to read and enjoy.

Amongst those whose lives depend on taking care with words are poets. Elizabeth Jennings has a special place in my personal canon. Her care with words, and her care for human experience, her inward surrender to the power of words and to the wonder of language as the limited expression of what we sense is inexpressible but essential to say, make her a poet of immense sensitivity and insight.

Hours and Words

There is a sense of sunlight where

Warm messages and eager words

Are sent across the turning air,

Matins, little Hours and Lauds,

When people talk and hope to teach

A happiness that they have found.

Here prayer finds a soil that is rich

And sets a singing underground.

Let there be silence that is full

Of blossoming hints. When it is dark

Men's minds can link and their words fill

A saving boat that is God's ark.

O language is a precious thing

And ministers deep needs. It will

Soothe the mind and softly sing

And echo forth when we are still.

(Elizabeth Jennings, New Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 2002), 324-5

"O language is a precious thing……"

And therefore our prayers are to be crafted, shaped and formed out of the language of the soul so that the language of our prayers is not insultingly banal, lazily informal, or repeatedly recycled cliche.

And therefore our writing is to be thoughtful and careful, not pedantic nor neurotic in a colourless rectitude, but open and freedom loving, expressing in words the beauty and ordinariness of what is so about our lives.

And therefore our emails may have to take a little more time if our language and meaning are to be clear, and the expression of ourselves as writers is to display courtesy, respect and care for our words, because they convey courtesy and respect and care to the recipient.

"Warm messages and eager words…" – that would be a telling criterion for those emails and texts, those letters and prayers, those compositions in words, of our best thoughts and best feelings.

20 January 2012
Stating the obvious – reading is good for the soul.

I wonder how many readers of this blog know the names and some of the books of Nels F S Ferre, A W Tozer, Elton Trueblood, Baron Friedrich Von Hugel, Evelyn Underhill, Alexander Whyte, Samuel Chadwick, Lesslie Newbigin, and more familiarly, C S Lewis?

What they have in common is entirely arbitrary, and I discovered it only because I happen to have read certain works of theirs over the years. They each recommend choosing one or two authors of substantial fare who should become lifelong conversation partners.

Ferre urged students to become an expert on one particular theologian or philosopher and use that knowledge as a benchmark, a critical measurement of everything else they read and thought.

Tozer, passionate evangelical that he was, enthusiastically read several Catholic books of devotion regularly and commended that practice to those serious about 'the knowledge of the Holy'.

Trueblood, a philosopher Quaker far too much forgotten today, recommended identifying several books as lifelong companions, including A' Kempis' Imitation of Christ, William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, Augustine's Confessions, Fenelon's Letters.

Von Hugel read Thomas a Kempis for 15 minutes every day, and one of the most complex and teutonic style philosopher theologians became intellectually docile and receptive to deeper truth.

Evelyn Underhill positively revelled in the writings of the Christian mystical tradition, her favourites being Van Ruysbreck, The Cloud of Unknowing and Augustine Baker's Holy Wisdom.

Alexander Whyte, Free Church of Scotland minister with a noble ecumenical sympathy was happy with the entire Christian tradition, from puritans to Carmelites, and from Boehme to Newman.

Samuel Chadwick, Methodist evangelist and College Principal and Bible Conference preacher and teacher of Christian holiness and perfection, had a classic Catholic devotional book always on his desk during Lent and Passion Week, and so soaked in the classics of Christian devotion.

Lesslie Newbigin in a little known book on ministry, The Good Shepherd, urges a similar regular discipline of exposure to biblical text, 'always having biblical work going with a scholarly commentary'.

C S Lewis in his introduction to Athanasius' The Incarnation, rebukes that chronological snobbery that thinks new books are preferable to old, and insists the reading of old books is essential for Christians to catch the scent of another and heavenly country.

With the advent of Kindle, there are a lot of these devotional, spiritual and theological classics available free or for very little. I'm currently working through The Imitation of Christ. Wonder if that saintly and stern Thomas would approve his meticulously written treatise being read on an electronic screen while travelling on the train, waiting at the dentists, or having a coffee in the favourite coffee place….

Hmmm…

19 January 2012
A Search for George Herbert

A search for new books on George Herbert, the Anglican poet par excellence, brings up an intriguing not to say amusing range of options. George Herbert's poetry, to modern ears, can seem bizarre in its conceits and metaphors, flowery in its language, and at best distant echoes from a previous age. But his poetry has enduring value for human development and spirituality, and explores the intensity of guilt and gratitude, of self criticism and divine acceptance, of insatiable longing and unbearable bliss.

But the name also brings up books about and by George Herbert Mead, the American philosopher of social consciousness and psychology. He too explored the nature of the self, not through prayer but through the importance of play and game in developing social values and relations. The give and take of human activity such as asking and giving, seeking and finding, winning and losing, talking and listening becomes the basis out of which the self is created. Mead's work also has enduring value for human society

Then there are books about George Herbert Walker Bush. At which point you become aware of the bizarre juxtapositions of the Amazon search engine. And you become aware too of the weird fact that an Anglican 17th century priest and patron saint of devotional poetry, and a 19th Century philosopher of human development and social values, share the same name with a President of the United States whose contribution to human spirituality and development and social inter-relationships is of an altogether other kind.

18 January 2012
“Stephen Lawrence”, by Carol Ann Duffy

I have been a fan of Carol Ann Duffy's poetry for years. I presented a paper on her love poetry at a theological conference and said she should be the next Poet Laureate. That she was honoured with the appointment is no surprise to those who appreciate the humane and perceptive way she deals with human weakness, longing, hurt, anger, tears, love, desire and so much else that we include in our never adequate descriptions of what it means, and more importantly what it feels like, to be a human being.

I missed her poem on the outcome of the Stephen Lawrence trial. Talking over a meal with a friend last night he mentioned it and sent me the link. It needs no comment other than it demonstrates why she is Poet Laureate, the poet who captures the significant moments in our shared life.

"Stephen Lawrence", by Carol Ann Duffy

Cold pavement indeed
the night you died,
murdered;
but the airborne drop of blood
from your wound
was a seed
your mother sowed
into hard ground –
your life's length doubled,
unlived, stilled,
till one flower, thorned,
bloomed
in her hand,
love's just blade.

17 January 2012
Why the word mystical shouldn’t be used as a synonym for woolly thinking.

Now here's an interesting way of thinking, of looking at the world, at the self, and at others.

"I can survive only by trying to build bridges, both affirming and also denying most of my own ideas and those of others. Most people tend to see me as highly progressive, yet I would say I am, in fact, a values conservative and a process liberal.

I believe in justice, truth, follow-through, honesty, personal and financial responsibility, faithful love, and humility – all deeply traditional values.

Yet in my view, you need to be imaginative, radical, dialogical, and even countercultural to live these values at any depth.

Whether in church life or politics, neither conservatives nor liberals are doing this very well. Both are too dualistic…they do not think or see like the mystics"

Richard Rohr, The Naked Now (New York: Crossroad), page 10

16 January 2012
Wild geese, Loch Skene, and our place in the world

In Scotland the wild goose is an image that goes back to early Christian days. The Iona Community has almost made the metaphor its brand name. Migration as the search for food and home, the costly but lifegiving freedom of flight, the forward lunge of the wings, the honking in unison of a long skein, the collaborative use of the slipstream, the lead goose giving direction and creating impetus – it isn't hard to see the spiritual implications of wild geese in flight.

The photo is of Loch Skene – at this time of year a major stop-off point for migrating geese. Long noisy skeins of them fly over our house. A field a mile away was brown with grazing geese and must present a headache and dilemma for farmers who see young grass being eaten with frightening thoroughness.

Mary Oliver's poem about Wild Geese is one of her best, and she is one of the best North American poets writing today. You can have your own go at working out the significance of the migrating goose for our understadning of the human journey, the spiritual quest, the hunger for home, for community and for what lies ahead. For now, here's Mary Oliver's take on those chevrons of fellow pilgrims and travellers on this beautiful fragile planet

.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

.

15 January 2012
We shall not live by bread alone, but we shall not live without it either

Nicholas Berdyaev:

There are two symbols,

bread and money;

and there are two mysteries,

the eucharistic mystery of bread,

and the Satanic mystery of money.

We are faced with the great task;

to overthrow the rule of money,

and to establish in its place

the rule of bread.

9 January 2012
The abyss of loss – and the promise of recovery

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they shall be comforted.

Mourning is a process of diminishment, a weakening of purpose, the reflexive ache of the human heart traumatised by loss. The death of someone whose life is entwined with ours in friendship, loving commitment or long years of shared experience creates an abyss of loss at the edge of which we tremble.

But there are other deaths – the dying of a loving relationship that is now suffering from a sclerosis of those channels of trust and communication that are the oxygen of of love. The loss of work, when a hoped for career doesn't work out, when redundancy means more than the technical word for being paid off, but takes on a note of fixedness that defines a human being as being superfluous to economic requirements. Illness and the loss of health, the recognition that the human body is so made that it naturally slows down, grows old and gradually loses its powers. The loss of place, when home no longer feels that secure, familiar retreat where welcome, renewal and belonging simply happen because that's what home is.

Comfort is more than the emotional security invested in a 'comfort' blanket. The word is about strength, fortification, en-couragement. But what strengthens and fortifies is the presence of the one who stands alongside, the one who is there for us. There is something to be said for holding on to the now obsolete name of the Paraclete. And even if it needs recovered significance, refreshed meaning, semantic repristination, there are few words that say better what it is that the mourner needs. A Paraclete, someone who is there for us.

The Matthean text uses the divine passive – comofort isn't available on demand from our own resources. It is that which is given, the gift of presence, the accompaniment of one who understands us, and stands under us, upholding with a strength that supplements our own weakness, and with a persitence and constancy that remains despite the changes that loss has made inevitable.

Mourning is the slow process of sorrow adjusting to loss, of reduced vitality and struggling hopes; comfort is the presence of one who is there for us, looks out for us, who enourages us towards a future still possible.The marble relief below is a moving image of the two poles of this beatitude – mourning and comfort, loss and presence, the reality of sorrow and the alternatiuve reality of hope.

8 January 2012
Haiku Prayer II The Importance of Lichen

The Director of Edinburgh Botanic Gardens spoke in the aftermath of the recent gales about the unprecedented damage to trees and glasshouses. One of the casualties was an ancient oak, lying on its side. He pointed out that this was the best view of the top of the tree they had ever had, sadly now possible. What amazed him was the rich variety of lichens that were flourishing in the higher branches. Lichens are amongst my favourite things. Their soft colours and delicate tracery I find fascinating, beautiful, and yet often hidden, unassuming and unannounced. The importance of lichen flourishing is that lichen are so sensitive to air quality that they are badly affected by contemporary forms of pollution. The rich forests of lichen on this oak tree was a sign that the air quality in Edinburgh has drastically improved in recent decades. Not everyone needs to know this I realise – but it confirms further my liking for these lovely plants.

Below is a photo taken during a recent walk up the hills, of lichen, growing out of a moss-covered tree stump. One of nature's annunciations of the gratuitous artistry of on permanent display in God's world.

Haiku Prayer II

Such Beauty! Hidden!

Fragile jade green filigree

set in sphagnum moss.

8 January 2012
Having Compassion on our Contradictions

Titian, "The Tribute Money," about 1560-8

I am two men; and one is longing to serve thee utterly,

and one is afraid.

O Lord have compassion upon me.

I am two men; and one will labour to the end,

and one is already weary.

O Lord have compassion upon me.

I am two men; and one knows the suffering of the world.

and one knows only their own.

O Lord have compassion upon me.

And may the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ fill my heart

and the hearts of all people everywhere.

– Austen Williams (1912-2001), Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (1956-1984)

7 January 2012