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Pencil Notes in the Margin: From Resurrecting Excellence

Baptism and the friendship of God

"God's initial offering of holy friendship occurs for us at the edge of the baptismal waters. in the initiating rite of baptism, we become disciples of the One who personifies God's friendship for us. Baptism interrupts our way of forming friendships based on what we hope to get out of them. in our new life of discipleship we learn a language that defies conventional wisdom about friendships: stories that tell of welcoming strangers, loving the enemy, and describing as family those for whom water is thicker than blood". (Page 63).

The Church, its organisational life, structures and functional groups:

"We believe it is essential that we offer both our prayers and our devotion to the healthy institutions that need to be preserved, the diminished or dispirited ones that need to be healed, the dying ones that need to be let go, and new ones waiting to be born." (Page 151).

The Excellence that matters

"Excellence in the Christian vocation is a sign and instrument by which creation is healed, reconciliation is experienced, and justice is practiced." (Page 49).

Honest self-awareness

"For the mind often lies to itself about itself and makes believe that it loves the good work, when actually it does not, and that it does not wish for glory, when in fact it does." (Gregory the Great – cited Page 43).

Community interpreters.

"Interpreters are a community's custodians of both memory and hope, people who help set the challenges and opportunities of the present within the much larger context of what God has done in the past and where God is leading in the future." (Page 130).

17 September 2008
Alas, that Wisdom is so large – And Truth – so manifold!

My current enthusiasm for bringing theology and poetry into conversation, means I'm reading and re-reading poems I mistakenly thought I already understood. Here's one by Emily Dickinson – a poem that is theologically charged, and which recognises the tensions between learning and ignorance, and exposes our childish attempts to expound with great certainty the things we hardly begin to understand.

It is one of the great gifts poetry bestows that it challenges the mindset that always, everywhere and everything must explain and expound – the needed reminder that our intellectual grasp can never be sufficient to the richly textured tapestry and mystery of our all too human existence. And indeed, the word grasp is encoded throughout with the idea of possession and control – but it may be that the most important things remain beyond our grasping grasp. That's true of both theology and poetry, forms of human speech which imply more than they say, reveal much less than their whole, just as what is visible of Atlantic icebergs is superficial, above the surface, implying unseen mass and weight.

Emily Dickinson – Poem 531

We
learned the Whole of Love –

The
Alphabet – the Words –

A
Chapter – then the mighty Book –

Then
– Revelation closed –

But
in each Other's eyes

An
Ignorance beheld –

Diviner
than the Childhood's

And
each to each, a Child –

Attempted
to expound

What
neither – understood –

Alas,
that Wisdom is so large –

And
Truth – so manifold!

The same general point is made with remarkable force by Hans Urs Von Balthasar in his meditation on the 'simplicity of sight' that is essential in all true seeing.

Here, finally it becomes clear why it is crucial to stress "simplicity of sight" (Mt 6.22; Lk11.34) so much when we encounter the form of Jesus. The Greek word for the simple people, haplous, means here both "lacking convolutions" and "healthy". For only the healthy / simple eye can see together the apparent contrasts in the figure of Jesus in their unity, only the little ones, the poor, the uneducated, are not seduced by an ever-increasing accumulation of nuggets of knowledge to consider individual traits only for themselves, thereby missing the figure because they are lost in pure analysis.
(Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Epilogue, page 96)

16 September 2008
“The Catholic Spirit”, John Bunyan and Post Denominationalism

"Christians are like the several flowers in a garden, that have upon each of them the dew of heaven, which being shaken by the wind, they let fall their dew at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished and become nourishers of one another."

(John Bunyan, Christian Behaviour, quoted in Bunyan the Christian, Gordon Wakefield, Collins, 1992).

Gordon Wakefield was a lifelong Methodist, and passionate ecumenist. He had no hesitation in affirming the valid and rich diversity of the Christian tradition, while holding with careful intent to his own Methodist convictions. Like John Wesley, he exemplified a devout eclecticism, and urged amongst different Christian communities the nurture of 'a Catholic Spirit'. Reading yet again Wesley's great sermon on this theme was one of the diversions of my time at St Deiniol's. The anti-ecumenical stance of some contemporary evangelicals is deeply embedded in some strands of the Evangelical tradition – but it is also challenged by others, including the Wesleys, John Newton, Charles Simeon, and if we include the Puritans then Thomas Goodwin and of course Alexander Whyte. Indeed Whyte defined Evangelical spirituality as Christ-centred and hospitable hearted – a balance that both encourages and enables fellowship, avoids small minded and exclusive claims, and maintains the place of Christ without displacing others.

The text for Wesley's sermon comes from Second Kings, "And when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of
Rechab coming to meet him, and he saluted him, and said to him, Is
thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab
answered: It is. If it be, give me thine hand." 2 Kings 10:15.

Now we might have some exegetical hesitations about the use of such a text as a justification for the Catholic spirit, and ecumenical engagement. But right hearts and extended hands does seem to suggest a willingness not to see 'the other' as a threat, or one who must think as I think. There's something grudging about giving someone the benefit of the doubt – why not give them the benefit of our goodwill that is willing to take risks? One of the consequences of celebrating, lamenting or simply conceding the onset of "post-denominationalism" is an impatience with difference, a nervousness about what is distinctive in how various groups of Christians have understood the call of Christ upon their lives. Diversity need not be competitive, exclusive, negative; it can be co-operative, inclusive and positive – and not in any way that need minimise the call of Christ to each of us to be faithful in following Him in the way He has called us to be. Indeed John Bunyan, who knew in his own experience the consequences of offending the rampant rightness of those who used power, exclusion and coercion in their efforts to standardise Christian behaviour and practice, makes exactly this point in Pilgrim's Progress.

"Behold the flowers are divers in Stature, in Quality, and Colour and Smell and Virtue, and some are better than some: Also where the gardener hath set them, there they stand, and quarrel not with one another."
(Quoted in Wakefield, page 67)

I am deeply, probably now indelibly dyed as a Baptist Christian, for whom "our Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour is the sole and absolute Authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures….". The Baptist tradition, with its radical and separatist history, has much to offer the Church of Christ, much to teach and much to live up to as a stream in the Christian tradition. But we also have much to receive from the Church of Christ, much to learn, and much to discover and value in what others have experienced and come to know of the fullness and richness of Christ. Here are three verses of a longer hymn from Charles Wesley – they say so much……..

Weary of all this wordy strife,
These notions, forms, and modes, and names,
To Thee, the way, the Truth, the Life,
Whose love my simple heart inflames,
Divinely taught, at last I fly,
With Thee and Thine to live and die.

Forth from the midst of Babel brought,
Parties and sects I cast behind;
Enlarged my heart, and free my thought,
Where'er the latent truth I find
The latent truth with joy to own,
And bow to Jesus' name alone.

Join'd to the hidden church unknown
In this sure bond of perfectness
Obscurely safe, I dwell alone
And glory in th' uniting grace,
To me, to each believer given,
To all Thy saints in earth and heaven.

14 September 2008
Watch and pray!

My worry about having three watches has evaporated. My Skagen stainless steel watch of three years is indeed seriously indisposed. Second opinion led to regretful head-shaking, shrugged shoulders and the consoling comment, 'Ye've juist been unlucky, pal'. The cost of repair, postage and its out of guarantee status means it's consigned to that timeless resting place for overwrought watches. But my old one (the 36 year old Rotary, is still chugging on) – how many people reach my age with a 21st birthday present that still works, eh? And how many congregations have silently praised God for the faithful nagging of a watch face reminding the preacher to be merciful? And I'm told it could be fitted with a new glass and have its face cleaned without me having to trouble the mortgage lenders, much.

Meantime here's a Skagen watch Haiku and a Rotary watch Haiku, and a wisdom type Haiku! Not a reflection on either make – more the disappointment of the new, the comfort of the old and an autumny thought!

Slim, sleek, steel time-piece,
transient chronometer,
discontinued time.

Old, scratched, over-wound,
decades-old familiar face,
keeping time, again.

Skagen? Rotary?
Neither lengthens life nor years;
best to watch…and pray!

12 September 2008
New Friends and old books

Well the jaunt to St Deiniol's as always didn't go exactly to plan. Yes, I did read chunks of Balentine on Job – but only a few and I decided I prefer the slow piece by piece approach. No I didn't get very far with Psalm 119 as I was sidetracked by Hermeneutics of Doctrine by Tony Thiselton. This is tough going but I'm learning just how much I don't know – and hoping that reading this will fill some hiatuses in my hermeneutical up to dateness. More immediately rewarding was Andrew Purves, Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition, which is a good concise survey of several ancient treatments of pastoral theology and how the values and theological commitments of the past remain relevant today – albeit with considerable adjustment for changed context and knowledge.n

But as usual I found the people as interesting as the books. And as varied. And as much a matter of taste. But I made two new friends – Peter from Arizona (pictured below) and Steve from Cardiff (pictured on the right). You know you need friends around when a retired Canon asks "What's a Baptist doing in an Anglo-Catholic library?" Could have said giving it some credibility – or – I'm here to do some personal witnessing – or take the more diplomatic route of murmuring that Baptists also honour divine learning, as Gladstone the Library's founder knew very well!

So I appreciated the friendship, conversation and shared learning Steve, Peter and I enjoyed at the meal table, the farm shop (where we had Italian coffee and Welsh tea bread), and over post dinner tea. Steve is well into a PhD on inter religious dialogue and wrestling with hermeneutics and religuous discourse in the public sphere, via Habermas et al. He's responsible for church based learning and Practical Theology at St Michael's College Cardiff and is Vice Principal; he was at St Deiniol's to get his head round some of the hard stuff in one of his PhD chapters. So I learned a bit more about Habermas.

Peter is doing research on the early 18th century non-jurors which got us into a conversation about Susanna Wesley who knew a thing or two about non-juring! Peter's great enthusiasm is Schleiermacher – he is a native German speaker and his area of expertise is 19th Century rational theology.This
photo is from Peter's profile on the University website – the moustache
was gone, so had the cowboy tie, by the time we met – but he tells me he and his wife have three horses in the garage / stable!

One of the joys of email is that it enables such friendships to go on being nourished by conversation and the stimulus of learning and sharing in that fellowship we call Christian scholarship.

11 September 2008
Reading and Retreat at St Deiniol’s Library.

Today I'm off to St Deiniol's for a personal reading retreat. I have to be in Crewe for a prior commitment Thursday coming, and the chance to combine that trip with a few days at St Deiniol's 40 minutes away was too good to miss. The banner under the photo syas something very near to my own sentiments – with just the moving of an 'S' – Libraries Matter!

I want to do some further work on Psalm 119 reflecting on the psalm as theological education within a wisdom curriculum. Not sure what will come out of this but I am trying to find a handle on Wisdom Psalms, and especially this elaborately constructed eulogy on the law of God, as structured encouragement to live Torah. The connections between Torah nurtured wisdom and theological education as life shaped by intentional practices of obedience to God, seem to me to promise important insights into what shapes and sustains ministry. In recent years there has been a growing recognition that ministry has its own competences. These are not mere practical skills, but grow out of theological and spiritually formative experience, and such competences express both the wisdom of a long, rich pastoral tradition, while also requiring of us an innovative adaptability in embodying and practising wise ministry in a contemporary and changing context.

My current commentary enthusiasm, Sam Balentine's commentary on Job will accompany me and I've scheduled some longer periods of reading in order to immerse myself more deeply in the flow of this remarkable volume. I'm also taking David Ford's Christian Wisdom, one of several volumes held back till they can be read without the interruption of normal life! It's the first of five big volumes I'm hoping to meander through by a daily diet of manageable chunks and careful note-taking.

Aside from those the library at St Deiniol's has enough variety to keep me going – including a superb Victorian poetry section. Books, music, running shoes, morning prayers, a cake and coffee shop across the road of which our Ministry Advisor advised a level of restraint (aye right!), – not doing the ascetic retreat, more an exercise in taking life easy, in a serious but not over-intense way – you know, the discipline of responsible freedom. So what would be responsible freedom in a coffee and cake shop? Hmmm? I'll let you know after some experiementation. No internet access for a few days so next blogging is after I get back.

7 September 2008
Messed about by time, and the perspective of poetry

The last couple of days I've been messed about by time. Well, messed about by watches anyway. Two or three years ago my Rotary watch, a gift from Sheila for my 21st birthday, finally creaked to a halt and the jeweller said it couldn't be repaired. So Sheila bought me a new watch, a Skagen slimline like the one in the picture. Last week at the Baptist Consultation, while delivering my paper, I became aware that it had been half past eleven for ages! The watch continued to start stop for a couple of days, finally giving up on Sunday morning, just as I was leaving for the Sunday service at Hillhead! I borrowed Sheila's, and went in the afternoon to have the battery changed. Only to be told it needed repairing and would cost a lot.

I came home weighed the pros and cons, but I do need a reliable watch, so I ordered a replacement, virtually the same but with a different coloured face – titanium blue this time. Then I went into my desk drawer where my old Rotary had lain untouched for over two years, wound it up more in hope than expectation – and it started, and kept going, and is still going. So I have a new watch coming, which is ok cos the old Rotary has a high mileage on the clock. But speaking with another watch repairer in Glasgow, he didn't seem to think my first Skagen was irreparable, and would estimate before proceeding, and at no charge for the check up and tests. I could end up with three watches, which isn't at all what I set out to do.

While negotiating my way through these past days of unreliable time, I was also reading Elisabeth Jennings and came across this poem. Is it not a beautiful meditation on the elusive and perplexing experience of time, the unknown future, the known history, and the present which is all we actually have…momentatily? This is Jennings the Christian poet at near her best, as she takes something ordinary, like ordinary time, and finds a pathway from there to those deep doctrinal realities that are themselves the mainspring of Christian faith.

The poem is dedicated to a Dominican preacher.You can find out about him here.

Time's Element
For Robert Ombres OP

I know that I was wrong about the hours
      And time and clocks and bells.
I thought that only future had its powers
Upon us. Hearing you, I see the false

Premise and perspective. All that's now
      Indeed is moved into
Futures we can't rely on or know how
Anything that happens here is true.

Of course the past is only sure and feels
      Certain. It is our
History. The future may be false
And any moment take from us one hour.

Then I remembered those prophetic words,
      'Before all was I am.'
Christ lived among us with a cross and swords
And yet he with his Virgin Mother came

Into the moments of the angel's plea.
      She carried God and man
And gave the future her willed history
As she took part in God the Father's plan.

From Elizabeth Jennings. New Collected Poems (Carcanet: 2002) 308.

5 September 2008
Glasgow Central, where this train terminates….

You know how the automated voice on trains helpfully keeps you informed of your whereabouts? For example:

"This is Dumbreck. The next stop is Glasgow Central where this train terminates."

At least, that's what you're supposed to hear. But if you're on sabbatical, and you're listening for a word from the Lord, you know, a wee word of encouragement or a hint that life is supposed to be for fun as well as work, and Sheila points out the phonetic possibilities, what you hear is

"This is Dumbreck. The next stop is Glasgow Central where the strain terminates".

And as Sheila and I were on our way to Miss Cranston's Tearoom we took this as such a wee prophetic word. At Glasgow Central the strain terminates, and fifty yards along Gordon Street is Miss Cranston's – now is that a wee word or what!
Readers of this blog will remember I covered myself in embarrassment on my last visit after a bad experience with a cafetiere plunger that took messy revenge on me for forcing the issue. This time – nae problem. Just a gentle downward push, and all the staff can breathe a sigh of relief.

On another note, yesterday – while watching the afternoon downpour I was on the exercise bike listening to Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and the Fourth Horn Concerto. Not sure Mozart could ever have envisaged the joy he would bring a sweaty Baptist working out – but the Clarinet Concerto is a work of heartbreaking genius.

Tomorrow if I don't get out running cos of the rain – though it looks to be better – I'll listen to the first piece of classical music I ever sat right through and listened to – in astonished surprise. I was given it on a vinyl LP by Sheila (around 1974!) after I'd read Unfinished Journey, the autobiography of Yehudi Menuhin. It's Brahms' Violin Concerto, a piece I've listened to regularly ever since, and never yet tired of it.

Now. What else should I listen to that would tone up my mind and spirit the same way that physical exercise does the body? This month is classical – so any suggestions welcome. I've a wee budget for some new CDs.

One of the tasks over the next while is reducing the number of CDs which sit on the shelves no longer listened to. Charity shops here I come – but does anyone listen to the likely rejects anymore…..?.

4 September 2008
A Haiku New Testament Introduction.

After a long delay due both to my oversight then the inability of Typepad to cope with pasted content – (now in the improved version much easier), I can publish one of the shortest (if not the shortest) NT Introduction available to hard pressed students. Thanks to all those who contributed now months ago. I'll be soliciting contributions to the OT version soon.

Gospel of Matthew
Son of Abraham
Brings fulfilment of Torah
Global Commission
         Catriona Gorton

Gospel of Mark
Good news! Here's a tale –
starts with mid-life crisis, then
stops before life starts.
        Andy Jones

Gospel of Luke
Good News! For the poor,
'Sinners' and tax-collectors:
Healing salvation.
       Catriona Gorton

Gospel of John
The Word became flesh.
Uncomprehending darkness
eclipsed by the light.
       Jim Gordon

Acts
In Jerusalem
The Word in gracious power
To all the world's end.
    Jason Goroncy

Romans
Saving God seeks… you:
sin-spoiled, grace-gained, destined. Die
to self, live to love.
       Andy Jones

1 Corinthians
Life in the body –
A guide for a healthy church
Three cores: faith, hope, love.
       Catriona Gorton

2 Corinthians
Don't do what I said;
do what I meant – and don't give
me all this hassle!
       Andy Jones

Galatians
In Christ free at last
They try to re-enslave me
Glory in God's Cross
       Jason Goroncy

Ephesians
God (who called you to
the skies) fill, gift and grow you;
live in light as one!
       Andy Jones

Philippians
A prisoner writes
of joy and freedom, for Christ's
crowning came through loss.
       Andy Jones

Colossians
False philosophies
hinder. Live holy lives, be good
to one another.
       Andy Jones

1 Thessalonians
Renowned for your faith
Live with faithful vigilance
The Lord is coming!
       Jim Gordon

2 Thessalonians
Show perseverance!
Stand against the Man of Sin!
Shun pious spongers!
Jim Gordon

Philemon
Neither slave nor free!
Since bound together in Christ,
Free Onessimus.
Jim Gordon

1 Timothy.
Teach what you were taught,
my son. Practice your gifts, and
keep the flock faithful.
Andy Jones

2 Timothy
Stick at it young Tim!
Pleasing God should be your aim.
P.S. bring my coat!
       Catriona

Titus
Pick leaders with care:
prize sound doctrine AND lifestyle.
Epimenides!
Catriona

Hebrews
Spoken by the Son
Lo, our great high priest has come
Grace be with you all
Jason Goroncy

James
Oft misunderstood
Harmony of faith and deeds
Practical wisdom
       Catriona Gorton

1 Peter
A chosen people
kept by the power of God
through fiery trial
       Jim Gordon

2 Peter
Divine election
Means live the last days trusting
Precious promises!
       Jim Gordon

I John
Walk in light and love!
Holy love will cast out fear
from hearts made perfect.
       Jim Gordon

2 John
Thirteen verses long:
Lady and kids, walk in love.
Beware docetism!
       Gordon Jones

3 John
The elder commends
kind hospitality (wish
others followed suit!)
       Andy Jones

Jude
Beware false teachers!
Love the sinner, hate the sin.
God will keep you safe.
       Catriona

Revelation
Valour in suff'ring
The Lamb who opens the scroll
Making all things new
       Jason Goroncy

3 September 2008
The way we were!

Trawling around on the internet looking for some places I used to know I came across class photos from a school I attended in the late 1950's.

Here's the class photo. Not telling which one is me – not yet anyway! Guesses welcome.

2 September 2008