Living Wittily

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  • Jesus and the Homeless.

    Eliot 1I've been checking the stories in the Gospels of when Jesus meets people, and the conversations with all kinds of folk whose lives were difficult, in some cases desperate.
    Surprisingly I couldn't find anything in his responses that translates into anything like "life-style choice".
     
    Am I missing something?
    Should I get a new Lexicon?
    When he said "Arise, take up your bed and walk!", did he really mean take up your tent and go away?
     
    More seriously.
    Alongside the 'What would Jesus do', question, is the equally searching what would we do to Jesus if we met him?
    And here's Jesus' answer to those who follow an anti-neighbour ethic: "For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me." (Matthew 25)

  • “The humanities teach us respect for what we are – we, in the largest sense.”

    RobinsonYou know how you give a title for a paper, and at the time it seems clever? Then you wish you had been a wee bit more circumspect? I'm currently working on a paper for next week, which earlier this year I gave the title: "The Problems that STEM from Downgrading the Humanities."
     
    The paper grows out of personal reflections, arising from concerns about increasingly severe cuts across all educational sectors, affecting learning and teaching resources, courses and opportunities for people to study the humanities – such as languages, history, literature, art and music, philosophy, and Lord help us, theology and religion.
     
    I understand the pressures in education coming from political, economic and financial choices. I recognise and with some regret, the move to thinking of education as a marketable commodity, the student as 'customer', and the primary focus being fixed on a student's employability after graduating, so that public money is seen to be 'value for money'. And as a consequence, I can see why Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM subjects) are seen as the high potential and high yield subject areas for creating a population with skillsets that enhance economic development and growth, market profitability, and global reach of product whether intellectual or material.
     
    But somewhere along that trajectory of commodifying education and valuing it for its economic returns, there is a growing neglect of education as a humanising and transformative process, aiming at a person's growth towards the common good and the building and sustaining of community. Hence concern about the decimation of the Humanities across the University subject bases of Western culture.
     
    My starting point is a quotation from Marilynne Robinson which you can find below. This then followed by further thoughts from Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the poet R. S. Thomas. Yes it will be a piece of special pleading; but I doubt I will apologise for that, or surrender the basic assertion that education is about more than marketability, employability and skill-sets, and must include preparation for life in community, growth in human development and understanding, maturing of ethical awareness and enabling towards independent thinking, moral imagination and cultural values, and all of these subject to the critical thinking of one who has learned to ask and live the creative questions.
     
    “The universities now seem obsessed with marketing themselves and ensuring the marketability of their product, which will make the institution itself more marketable – a loop of mutual reinforcement of the kind that sets in when thinking becomes pathologically narrow.
    The humanities teach us respect for what we are – we, in the largest sense. Or they should. Because there is another reality, greater than the markets, and that is the reality in which the planet is fragile, and peace among nations, where it exists, is also fragile.
    The greatest tests ever made of human wisdom and decency may very well come to this generation or the next one. We must teach and learn broadly and seriously, dealing with one another with deep respect and in the best good faith.”
    Marilynne Robinson, ‘Decline’, in The Givenness of Things (London: Virago, 2015) page 123.
     

  • Prayer as Neighbour Love.

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    "Prayer as a cry for justice is real prayer, a spiritual act addressed to a real God who hears. While it is real speech by real people in real hurt addressed to God, it is a public act.
     
    For that reason the transaction spills over into the public realm, whereby the rhetoric of prayer inescapably becomes political talk. 
     
    The test of the linkage of pain and political talk is the fact that every such vigorous, concrete prayer is sure to provoke political feedback of a hostile kind from those committed to the status quo."
     
    (Walter Brueggemann, 'Prayer as Neighbour Love', in Truth and Hope. Essays for a Perilous Age (WJK: Louisville,2020), page 171. Emphasis original.

  • Here’s the Church here#s the steeple….

    Kings"The church is not the building, it's the people."
     
    Those words are a truth which, if pushed too far, lose their grip on the truth they affirm. A church is a people being formed in community, gathered and scattered and gathered again for worship.
     
    A church building is a place where prayer and praise, baptism and communion, year on year, are offered.
     
    The building is not sacred; yet what is done there, like slow falling rain, soaks the nutrients of holiness into the soul.
     
    In this building, over centuries, souls have prayed, and holiness has taken root in their lives.
     

  • Learning to Pray the Defiant Fragility of a Rose

    IMG_4833In a world where brutality, cruelty, and vengefulness grow and blossom out of the soil of hatred long nourished, a world where seeds of compassion, hope, and forgiveness seem harder to sow and propagate,
     
    there is this rose, fragile, lovely, and transient –
     
    a reminder that beauty is real, and life is a gift to be cherished in us, and in each of all those other people who share our humanity, and who are caught up in cycles of violence, conflict and despair.
    So we keep sowing the seeds of compassion, hope, and forgiveness.
     
    And we keep praying for peace, as a disposition of resistance and a standpoint of trust.
    And we live what we pray for. Or so it seems to me.

  • The Importance of Roots and Fruits

     

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    Monday

    Genesis 1.11-12 – “Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so….And God saw that it was good.”

    The first mention of trees in the Bible, “bearing fruit and seed according to their kind.” Trees are good, and they are good for us, and for the whole planet. Shade from the sun, soil stability for the land in flood, fruit to eat, and as filters for our air. Early in our human story trees were amongst God’s good blessings. They still are.

    Tuesday

    Genesis 2.16-17 – “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” 

    Innocence and guilt, right and wrong. We live with these inner judgements every day. But our all too human hearts claim the right to be free, and that freedom can be used for good or evil. The knowledge of good and evil is only possible when we know both, make choices, and have done both. And so sin is born. To turn away from God who is the source of life is fatal, a choice against life.

    Wednesday

    Psalm 1.2-3 –Blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.”

    To spend time enjoying God’s company, meditating on the love of God in Christ. We all know the importance of irrigation for plants and trees. Irrigate your soul, take time to be rooted near the river of life, with its various tributaries – the Scriptures, thanksgiving, worship. We’ve all seen plants dying for water, wilted and withering – fill the watering can, do some self-irrigation!

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    Thursday

    Psalm 92.12-15 – The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,
    proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

    Just as in Psalm 1, the tree is a symbol of a life rightly lived, rooted in God and lived in glad obedience. One of the features of a tree is its rootedness and stability. The life lived rightly in Christ is anchored in the steadfast love and enduring faithfulness of God. Good fruit and green leaves just keep coming to those who are “planted in the house of the Lord.” The Lord is upright, and his word is Rock-solid!

    Friday

    Psalm 96.11-13 – “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy. Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.”

    Judgement and justice lie at the heart of God’s purposes and ways in the world. When justice is done the whole creation rejoices. Think of a forest as a choir, the wind of God blowing through it, the trees moving in rhythm to the sounds of branches playing. Come on! Use your imagination – thank God for the promise of his presence now, and the promise of his coming in due time to make the world right.

    Saturday

    Isaiah 55.12 – “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”

    These are words to a people going home, free from exile, returning to the place of worship and thanksgiving. Singing mountains and hand-clapping trees – you need some imaginations to think that up! This is the applause of God’s creation, the joy of the redeemed singing songs of freedom. Sometimes, the praise we pray and sing to our Lord just needs a good dose of exuberance. Come on, says Isaiah, join hands with the trees, and dance to the music of the mountains! You’re part of God’s plan!

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    Sunday

    Proverbs 11.30 – “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and the wise gathers lives.”

    A life well lived brings life and goodness to the whole community. When people act with mercy, justice, and kindness because they love and trust God, there is a ripple effect throughout a neighbourhood. Indeed, to have the reputation of someone well known for caring for others, is one of the best ways to witness to the love of God in Christ. People tend to want to be around those whose lives speak in actions, behaviour, attitudes and words that are encouraging, affirming and on the side of life. “Lord, root us deep in your love, as trees of life, bearing the fruits of compassion for others, and gathering the lives of others into the circle of your love.”

  • When Peace is Hard to Come By and Prayer is a Holding on to Hope.

    Cross blythe
     
    The holding cross in the photo is made of olive wood, and was given to me as a gift at a time when peace was hard to come by.
     
    Holding it this morning and praying for the peace of Jerusalem and Gaza, I'm aware of the contested soil on which this wood was grown, and long ago, the soil on which stood that one cross amongst the countless thousands Rome manufactured and utilised as instruments of terror, oppression and control.
     
    Over the years the cross has shaped itself to my hand, or perhaps my hand has simply become familiar with its shape, weight and texture. Either way the cruciform shape, gripped in praying hands, is an acknowledgement of the world's anguish and the pain of God in Christ. 
     
    "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1.19-20)
     
    Those words – "Making Peace", are the title of a remarkable poem by Denise Levertov. Wisdom, compassion, moral courage that defies despair with words of hopefulness – Levertov at her very best. This is the poet as prophet of peace.
     
    Making Peace, Denise Levertov.
     
    A voice from the dark called out,
    "The poets must give us
    imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
    imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
    the absence of war."
     
    But peace, like a poem,
    is not there ahead of itself,
    can't be imagined before it is made,
    can't be known except
    in the words of its making,
    grammar of justice,
    syntax of mutual aid.
     
    A feeling towards it,
    dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
    until we begin to utter its metaphors,
    learning them as we speak.
     
    A line of peace might appear
    if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
    revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
    questioned our needs, allowed
    long pauses. . . .
     
    A cadence of peace might balance its weight
    on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
    an energy field more intense than war,
    might pulse then,
    stanza by stanza into the world,
    each act of living
    one of its words, each word
    a vibration of light—facets
    of the forming crystal.
     
     

  • Everything is Beautuful

    386469055_3591474787737222_9066132774446492037_nLate autumn, dusk by 6.20, and walking out to the car to go replenish the digestive biscuits. Coming out the door I was ambushed, or at least summoned by a flower. Nothing extra special, just a Cosmos bloom.
     
    'Just' – that dismissive, diminishing adverb again. 'Just', meaning 'no more than', or 'only'. It's a word used comparatively, and it's not usually a compliment.
     
    The picture of the Cosmos bloom is, (let's use the word another way), 'just beautiful', 'just perfect' even. Leave aside comparisons, and consider the line from a song I heard Ray Stevens sing when I was 'just 20' 🙂
     
    "Everything is beautiful, in its own way".
     
    Just so!

  • Trees as Social Capital, and Their Presence for the Common Good.

    P1010297Something important is being said when the felling of a single tree makes national and international headlines. The loss of the landmark tree at Sycamore Gap that had stood for more than two hundred years, means that, for once the word ‘shocking’ is not an overstatement. That tree had been a trysting place, a walkers’ landmark, a place of solace, a photographer’s dream place, a silhouette of joy against a night sky.

    Whatever the motives of those who cut it down, that sycamore was a symbol, its deep rootedness and familiar always-there presence, a focus for human hopes and longings, a safe place for people to sit. And before we dismiss those deep ties of human affection for trees, it might be wise to consider how much we need signs of permanence on our landscapes, and the healing power of nature’s recurring seasons of growth and rest, of harvest times and fruit.

    The Bible speaks of trees that have leaves for the healing of the nations. Another text sings of freedom and the applause of God’s creation when ‘the trees of the field will clap their hands’. And it was in the thick foliage of a sycamore tree that Zacchaeus was hiding when Jesus passed by and spotted him, and made a point of being a friend to someone most other people hated.

    Trees are signs and places of blessing. They are important reminders that life isn’t all about machines and technology, and life goals need more than more money or endless selfies to satisfy. Life needs roots, to enable us to bear the good fruit of our years. Trees are nature’s long term investments, visual aids of what happens when life flourishes. That’s why we should cherish them.

    Photo: Two trees near Guite Castle, Aberdeenshire.

  • Some Thoughts from a Year Old Photograph.

    This time last year, about 3pm, after a day and night of rain, walking in Dunecht Estate, this happened.
     
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    There are rare moments when there is a coincidence of mood and climate, inner longing and unexpected gift, the play of shadow and light, when for a brief time we glimpse how this world and our world coalesce, and we begin to believe the things we hope for are possible.
     
    “For most of us, there is only the unattended
    Moment, the moment in and out of time,
    The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
    The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
    Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
    That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
    While the music lasts.
    from “The Dry Salvages”
    ― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets