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Meeting the Christ of St John of the Cross.

I went to visit an old friend on Wednesday. Actually two old friends. One I've known for over 40 years, the other I first encountered 30 years ago. My friend of 40 years shared a coffee, then lunch, then much talking about the things that matter and some things that don't. That friendship has settled into an unspoken but mutually understood trust that enables us to speak with freedom not merely in confidence, but in the confidence that what is said is heard, listened to and attended to.

The second old friend now resides in a setting that does justice to its beauty, power and commanding presence. Salvador Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross needs neither accolade nor commendation. It is a masterpiece. That it excites argument and admiration, creates controversy while depicting reconciliation, and draws you into the spiritual realities of Christian faith while resisting facile devotional reductionism, simply confirms its status as on of the greatest paintings of the 20th Century.

It also excited the hostility of someone with a knife who ripped and scarred it half a century ago, and subsequently inspired the restorers to work with painstaking patience to repair it. Which brings me to one of those epiphany moments that perhaps it takes the context of Kelvingrove Art Gallery, and the love Glasgow folk have for their art collection, and this particular painting.

I am sitting on the bench and all but paddling in the sea shallows at the edge of the painting. In came two Glasgow punters, one who had never seen the painting before and one who thought it was a "braw picture". They stood up close and the experienced art guide who had seen it "hunners o' times" helped his pal to stand at just the right angle, in line with the lights, and pointed out the L shaped scar, barely visible, but there to be seen if you knew where to look. They talked for a while describing in Glaswegian discourse the perpetrator of the damage, and spoke with wondering gratitude (but in that same Galswegian discourse) of those who "sorted it". Then they went away. At no time did they stand and look at the painting as it is. Having inspected the damage and the repair, away they went. I was offended for my friend, and should have gone and asked them to come and meet the masterpiece properly. I'm glad I didn't.

A few minutes later as I walked out of that small place of peace and prayer that is the right setting for this painting, there the two of them were, sitting there and taking in the visual presentation of the history of the painting and how it came to be in Kelvingrove, and how £8,200 was an enormous amount of money 60 years ago, and how one man's vision and persistence resulted in Glasgow owning a work of art that is now all but priceless. It was just ending, and they got up and went back in to the painting. And I smiled a deep inner smile – now they were going to meet my friend properly, having done their background research.

Several times I've taken a class to look at this painting – online just doesn't work. They go having discussed it in class, looked at the background, and with some idea of what to look for. What they don't have an idea of, is what it will be like to stand before this astonishing artistic statement – Dali's professed aim to paint a beautiful Christ of the Cross. Then we go walkabout, in company or alone, and meet some time later for round the coffee table discussion in the cafe downstairs. Some of my most rewarding and moving experiences of teaching and learning (and both are so intermingled we are all learner / teachers) have taken place round such a table, having encountered Dali's masterpiece. And the irony is, in achieving his aim, an act of vandalism has left a scar that is still visible if you know where to look. And in that irony is one of the great theological mysteries, of created beauty, damaged and restored, having the power to subdue our worst and renew our best.

6 January 2012
The Beatitudes as a Daily Exposure to the Radical

The Beatitudes –

these are such potent and condensed logia of Jesus

that there should never be a claim to definitive exegesis –

more a docile yet energetic receptiveness

before a wisdom that subverts the most cherished notions

of a materialist, consumerist and hedonistic mentality

bent on reducing all of life to barcodes, images and strap lines,

in the service of the self-centred project of secular salvation,

and doing so through radical practices and redemptive gestures.

No’ a bad wee rant that! Made it up myself!

More seriously, I've had reason to revisit the Beatitudes for a study project.

I'm currently reading them slowly each day

in a kind of receptive repetition,

wondering if such attentive pondering

will become a slow absorption of truth,

and create a transformative patience

with values and virtues too outrageously odd

to take at anything other than their face value.

The photo is of Dorothy Day, whose outrageous opposition to racism and injustice led to this outrageous redemptive gesture. She is an embodied Beatitude.

5 January 2012
Haiku Prayer I : For those in peril on the sea.

Haiku Prayer I

Dangerous beauty:

Wild freedom of wind and waves,

O Lord have mercy

1 January 2012
New Every Morning, and Every Morning New

PRAYER TO START THE DAY

       May we accept this day at your hand, O Lord,

      as a gift to be treasured,

            a life to be enjoyed,

                  a trust to be kept,

                        and a hope to be fulfilled,

                              and all for your glory.

Succinct.

       Precise.

              Positive.

                     The spirituality of multum in parvo.

The photo isn't brilliant – but the sun is, and it shines on the righteous and the unrighteous, which I guess covers it all!

31 December 2011
The Questionable Validity of “You have to be cruel to be kind”.

Having finished the Dickens biography I'm now well into the biography of Steve Jobs. Both men whose gifts, hard work, drivenness and early insecurity were harnessed by acute intelligence and a flair for entrepreneurial opportunism. Comparisons are hard to make though – the contrasting contexts of Victorian England and 21st Century Silicon Valley; the very different media through which they worked, one a novelist who pushed the genre in radically new directions, the other a technical geek for whom technology held the secrets of an accelerating can-do attitude.

I was struck by the recurrence of one word, describing a character disposition, and used by both biographers, to describe their subject. It's a word I'd hope was never applied to myself, or anyone I cared much about. Yet it seems to be a required term to describe how each of these great men went about their business, their relationships and influenced some of the key moral choices in their lives. And it has left me wondering if it is an essential component of the entrepreneurial and ambitious drive of those utterly committed to sustained innovation, product marketing and the can do no matter what mentality. They are both described as cruel.

I underlined the word in both books, and have reflected on the examples given, and the personal contexts that provoked the use of such a specific term of moral deficit. I've no intention of singling out either Dickens or Jobs – I'm more interested in the use of the word, the aptness of the word, and the cultural context that enables such a word to be used. And I am asking a deeper question about our culture in which we are increasingly careful of our terminology lest we discriminate against, abuse or diminish the dignity of other human beings – I'm absolutely on the side of moral correctness in the way we use words, and address other people.

But it does seem that we have come to tolerate cruelty in other forms – as ruthlessness replaces kindness, rudeness laughs at courtesy, resentment smirks at respect, slick cleverness pretends to be intelligence, being outrageous is better viewing than being compassionate, and selfishness replaces consideration of the other as a virtue. Is there something in a materialist, consumer driven, celebrity obsessed, virtual reality, globalised, ICT saturated, social networking culture that requires of us distance and disinterest, self-focus and self-promotion, and a redefined morality of self-survival at the expense of others?

Has our commitment to economic prosperity as the index of standards of living become so absolute that human existence and quality of life are reduced to economic indicators of growth and recession?

And in all the anxieties and uncertainties that now invades and pervades daily life, what are the safeguards in our systems and structures that prevent political decision making, commercial choices, industrial strategies from building in as a non-negotiable assumption, that you have to be cruel to be kind?

The word cruel now requires moral examination. From exploitation on reality shows to abuse of vulnerable people; from decisions made by corporations and governments about people's futures to thoise acts, words and attitudes that wound, intimidate and corrode people's sense of worth; from premeditated rejection and hurting of the other to those countless careless incidents that drain self confidence and make the world less safe for the vulnerable. By the way, the other word used of both Jobs and Dickens, is kind. The contradictions of our humanity – the capacity for cruelty and kindness, are not limited to these two people. They are integral to what we mean by moral growth, ethical maturity or sanctification.

The painting is one of the most powerful representations of human cruelty, human grief and compassion, and divine love. Rogier Van der Weyden's Triptych of The Deposition is a study in destructive cruelty and redemptive love, etched on each face, and enacted in the body language of bewildered sorrow.

30 December 2011
Reading Dickens at Christmas

Instead of reading one of Dickens' novels this Christmas, I read Claire Tomalin's biography. There are pluses and minuses in that – those who enjoy reading Dickens know well enough the humour, the acute and astute observation of human behaviour, the use and abuse of caricature and pathos, the contrived plots which would embarrass most moderate versions of the doctrine of providence, and the narrative drive frequently interrupted by long descriptive passages, some of which are the most closely documented and vivid descritpions of early and mid Victorian London.

The real gain of reading Tomalin's biography is that it is precisely these prominent features of Dickens' genius and perennial appeal that are traced to their living context in Dickens' life experience. That experience was assimilated, reconstructed and written into the characters, plots and landscapes of his novels. Most of what I learned from reading Tomalin is the significance of such contextualising both as explanation of his immediate appeal to his readers, and as exploration of how a writer's own life experience can be transmuted into fiction without losing its connectedness to the author. Dickens' experience of poverty, of thwarted ambition, his struggle to find his way, and the appearance in his novels of characters and human characteristics traceable to those he knew and observed, are all shown to be woven into Dickens' Victorian tapestries.

The biography reads well, Tomalin's research is meticulous and seldom pedantically paraded, at times she speculates about motive and argues from silence, not always convincingly, but she is in control of the content of Dickens' novels and well versed in the secondary literature. Her earlier work on Nelly Ternan, The Silent Woman, is well exploited in reconstructing the astonishing feat of secrecy and deception required to keep hidden the real relationship between Dickens and Nelly Ternan. This is told with care, understanding, but without excusing Dickens' behaviour and treatment of others in pursuing an alternative, even parallel existence, away from the public eye.

Each of the major novels is discussed and commented on from this same contextual perspective, and much light shed on the birthing process of each novel. That he wrote so much while living a life of self-consuming intensity is testimony to levels of energy and industry that at times defy belief – and adequate explanation. Today we might use the term driven, but even that diminishes Dickens' achievement, for there was undoubtedly an iron will, an obsessive determination to exact from each day of life the maximum quantity of productive experience.

Buit I finished this biography better understanding this complex and contradictory man, at times pitiless to those who thwarted him, yet capable of immense compassion and extraordinary generosity; capable of loving with utter devotion and yet equally capable of cauterising feelings and moving on without a backward glance. It's a sign of Tomalin's achievement that you read her book and have a much less romanticised view of Dickens – he is both increased and diminished in stature, because this is no hagiography, nor is it a piece of literary hatchet swinging. It is a life told mainly according to the evidence, and where there is speculation it is never unfounded. And we are left to wonder at this storytelling genius, who plays on human emotion like a virtuoso musician, bringing a country to a tearful crescendo at the death of little Nell, but who did not attend his own brother's funeral nor send an acknowledgement of his death.

27 December 2011
Yehudi Menuhin – Discovering the Inner Universe of Music

We're soon going to know the list of those nominated for the Queen's New Year Honours list. The process of identifying, recommending and nominating those to be honoured I'd hope has criteria beyond the person's fame, capacity to influence or celebrity profile. I'd like there to be two specific criteria. :

Is the person a great human being?

Have they contributed to human compassion and inspired us to be more humane?

The answer to the second would help answer the first. Now I admit this post didn't begin with a thought about the New Years Honours List. It started with me listening to a piece of music and thinking for the umpteenth time that the violinist is one of the greatest human beings I've admired in my lifetime. That sparked the question, what makes someone a great human being?

Generous outward looking compassion.

Discontent with injustice.

Love for a broken world.

Bringer of joy into the lives of others.

Cherishing of human worth.

Communication across cultures.

Hopeful poise towards the future.

Moral integrity and courage.

That isn't an exhaustive list. It certainly won't be universally agreed. But for me it describes Yehudi Menuhin. I first encountered Menuhin on an EMI recording of Brahms' Violin Concerto, the first classical record I ever listened to at the age of 20! A mind and soul that was soaked exclusively in the ferment of the music of the late 60's and early 70's, had no idiom or discourse to interpret what I was hearing. I remember the joyful bewilderment, the humbling realisation that there are other languages than my own, deeper chords in my being than I knew, longings from who knows where. These were awakened by the creative power, remorseless beauty, corrective harmony and proffered vision of an artist at the height of his powers commanding attention with the overwhelming argument of that wordless language of the human heart and spirit which we call music. I still can't hear the first bars of the second movement without remembering with grateful embarrassment that epiphany in sound which conferred such a generous invitation to come, to hear, and to relinquish that culpable arrogance that thinks it knows, and discovers such arrogance is ignorance.

There are different ways God invades our lives and subverts our certainties. Ever since that afternoon, music has had the power to do this to me. Not long after I read Menuhin's autobiography, Unfinished Journey. That's when I became interested in what moves and inspires, what gives moral content and human value, what is that inexplicable quality that is expressed through the creative kenosis that enables music to express human integrity, transcendent beauty and those deep truths of existence out of which our joys and tragedies are fashioned. Amongst other things it is the list of attributes of what I consider makes a great human being. On my own unfinished journey, Yehudi Menuhin has been a recurring humanising presence whose gift was the opening up of a new inner universe.

26 December 2011
Peace and hope and joy and love – and much laughter!

Last night went to the midnight service in Skene. Carol singing for half an hour, then a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be wanted in someone else's life – Emmanuel, God who comes to us seeking welcome as the one who will always welcome us.

The magic was walking there and coming out into a clear frosty sky, It came upon the midnight clear was illustrated on a North Eastern sky, a star studded sky, sparkling with jewels whose light flashed aeons ago, and now reaches us at precisely this moment. I took time to gaze, and wonder, and ponder, and feel very small, but held within a purpose vaster than that same swirling galaxy, itself one of billions of such realities.

When I look at the stars what are human beings that you care for them – well as a matter of fact, says God, pretty special. "For unto us a child is born…and the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory…"

Peace and joy to all who come here, not only today, but whenever you find your way here. Serve God wittily in the tangle of your mind – and the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind in the knowledge and love of God….

25 December 2011
Advent Enthusiasms and Idiosyncrasies (6) Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence!

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

My favourite Advent hymn! Along with Veni Emmanuel! And not forgetting It Came Upon the Midnight Clear – I'm not against all sentimental hopefulness! And Adeste Fidelis – especially the verse that plagiarises the Nicaean Creed!!

The sense of transcendent wonder in the first line cuts through all the theology, sentiment, self-indulgence and our anthropocentric worldviews and tells us plainly to shut up! This isn't the usual headlines at six, and is a universe away from our reality soaked celebrity culture. This is God whose Reality exposes the emptiness of all other virtual realities. This is God in the God-like poise of Eternal Light, Loving Creator, Kenotic Redeemer. This is God embracing mortal flesh, speaking into the mute silence of a fractured creation that same Word through whom all things were made and still exist. The wonder and worship of heaven intersect with the mundane self-absorption of a humanity lost in its own sense of self-sufficiency, its horizons limited by the myopic sense of its own importance. Into a world oblivious of the self-destructive urge to power comes the All-Powerful in the vulnerability of love. No wonder angels veil their faces, and gasp in the disbelief of wondering worship, before singing the praise of the One through whom the mystery of the ages is made known, as the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us – and we beheld his glory -full of grace and truth.

And sometime in the Christmas Eve service there should be some moments of silence, when all mortal flesh with fear and trembling stands, and ponders, and wonders, and worships.

24 December 2011
A Walk in the Forest – of pine trees and lichen

Yesterday I went for a walk around Drum Castle and the Drum Estate. The ground was squeclchy and it was more about leg stretching and aerobics than leisurely reverie. I took some photos, none of which will win any competitions. But a couple of them might be worth a second thought.

The tree on the left is entirely covered in grey-green lichen, one of my favourite natural colours. Close up it resembles ancient sea coral, and has some of the most intricate and delicate patterns of living filigree.

Here's what I mean. You could be looking down on a coral reef, or a forest. The subtle play of light and shadow on tones and colours that vary almost imperceptibly, make these fragile outgrowths master works of nature's art.

Then we came on this. The aftermath of the recent gales, with trees fallen, some snapped mid trunk and evidence all around of that other side of nature's power. Even trees are fragile in winds up to 100mph.

Rather easy to moralise and do a wee homily on the power of nature and the transience of life, and the fragility of beauty extravagantly displayed in grey-green complexity, and how the providence of God pervades and invades our world. Actually, I just enjoyed the walk, contemplated the lichen, and scrambled through the arboreal debris wondering how many wrens would build a high rise nest in the huge uprooted root systems. As for God – I guess God was in the mighty wind that breaks trees, and in the long slow persistence of lichen, pushing towards air and light for life. Instead of quoting Job, I recall a non canonical writer who sang, "Ah think to ma'self, what a wonderful world".

23 December 2011