Living Wittily

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  • Hit and run, arson and the failure of moral imagination

    Each human life is unique and precious. Every human being embodies an entire universe of possibility, potential and value.

    Storyf6175c2403007068ff160188db1142 Catherine Corbett, a young police woman is run down in a hit and run incident as she was trying to arrest people suspected of fraud. Fraud is about dishonest gain, cheating others for something that could never balance the loss of a human life, or the crushing of human possibility.

    Fsc_logo_top_2 One fire fighter is dead and three others missing in the aftermath of a huge fire almost certainly an act of arson. The act of fire-raising is intentionally destructive, whether from stupidity or malice, but either way it endangers human life unnecessarily, at times with tragic consequences.

    There is a bleak nihilism laced through the substance of our society. It manifests itself in a failure of moral imagination, that capacity to envisage the human consequences of actions, so that restraint, accountability, compassionate responsibility, the essential public duty of valuing and protecting life, simply do not register on the moral radar. The tragic irony is that those people who serve the public, like our police force and the fire service, who put themselves in the way of harm to protect the public and preserve human life, by doing so demonstrate precisely those qualities of moral imagination – holding themselves accountable, showing compassionate responsibility for others, acting out of public duty. They are too little valued in a society too easily taken in by the superfluous, the trivial, the transitory, the self serving, the greedy grabbing for advantage – and a society too neglectful of those who, while also part of that same society, have made a vocation of caring about precisely those human consequences of other people’s actions.

    Tonight I pray for those whose sense of pride in the courage and conduct of their loved ones, only slightly lessens the leaden weight of loss. May they know the comfort of God, whatever that might mean for each of them

    300pxchrist_of_saint_john_of_the_cr Tonight I pray for those whose actions have led to the loss of lives, and the breaking of human bodies. May they recover that moral imagination essential to personal moral responsibility; and then may their remorse open them to the possibility of restorative justice and a future in which one of the consequences of their past actions might be future acts of recreative hope.

  • Autism and Religion.

    Sbanner_left In December 2007 and March 2008 I will be taking part in two inter-disciplinary symposia on ‘Religion and Autism’. It is sponsored by the Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability at the University of Aberdeen. You can find out about it here. I have been invited to take part and am offering a paper entitled, ‘Is a Sense of "Self" essential to Spirituality?’

    I am interested in the subject of these symposia for several reasons, personal and pastoral. My wife Sheila has many years of wide experience in areas of disability and additional support needs, including in the past 5 years working with pre-school children with autism, and with their parents as part of an early intervention and support programme, which includes EarlyBird training. On my own part, I served for many years as Chaplain in a school for children and young people with a range of learning  difficulties including autism. In pastoral charges we have accompanied families which include people with autism and have explored ways of providing appropriate support and inclusion within a local church setting. Some of these families we have known and accompanied for over 17 years and have shared the challenges of the growth and development of several children with autism – now teenagers.

    At a more theological level I have for some time taken an interest in the theological, pastoral and human implications of those conditions which often mean a person has an impaired sense of self. Any condition which diminishes a person’s sense of self, and which impairs their capacity to relate in a self-conscious, appropriate and socially interactive way with others, raises questions about what the reality of God, religious experience and religious practices might mean for such people. Autism is one such condition of which I have close experience. As a Christian theologian I am thus compelled to examine my own tradition to explore the theological possibilities that enable such working concepts as spirituality, humanity, identity, self-awareness and Other awareness, to be defined in ways that include and affirm the place of the autistic person within a faith community. For me a first step in this would be a head on facing of the question that is the title of my proposed paper:

    Is a Sense of ‘Self’ Essential for Spirituality?

    On all of this I will keep those of you who read this blog posted. Maybe even set up one or two areas for exploration, suggestion and shared insight.

  • Be considerate to the neighbours when you pray

    Smile3t Early in the morning, before the sun was risen, I went out for a slow jog in the drizzle…which like God’s love falls on the righteous, and thankfully, on the unrighteous

    Early in the morning, before the sun was risen, they came to the place where Jesus lay…He is not here, He is risen. Indeed!

    Early in the morning O Lord you hear my voice, in the morning I lay my requests before you, and wait in expectation. (Ps.5.3)

    His compassions never fail  they are new every morning. (Lam 3.23)

    Slowly jogging past the neighbours’ houses, not a prayer jog, not a hint of  ‘claiming the territory’, but as the drizzle slowly seeps into the sweatshirt, and cools both my face and the shiny dome above it, so may God’s blessing fall as drizzle on the roofs of these houses, and seep into the lives of those still sleeping, or just waking.

    And I jog quietly, because as Proverbs 27.14 says

    If a man loudly blesses his neighbour early in the morning,

    it will be taken for a curse.

    So I’m learning to jog quietly and pray inwardly!

  • Cyclones of power, consuming glory fire

    Within Reformed Christianity of almost all flavours, there is an entire spectrum of corporate and individual devotional practice. Within Evangelicalism prayer tends to be a combination of pragmatism and mysticism, extempore vernacular and inspired corporate worship, brash intercessory claiming of God’s blessings as if God were a bank and we were demanding, as of right, an increased overdraft; and on the other hand, those for whom prayer is humble patient waiting on God, whose depths of mercy and mystery, require silent wonder, wordless adoration, and only then ecstatic praise.

    Hvg_oval_2  Frances Ridley Havergal could write of both. Her most famous hymn, ‘Take my life and let it be’ is a personal inventory of all the dimensions of human life and experience that have to be handed over to God. But it is one of her less known poems that demonstrates this woman’s sweep of intellect and mystical depth. Havergal’s vision of God inspires breathless, adoring wonder, and places her amongst the genuinely mystical poets.

    In ‘Thoughts of God’, Havergal offers, not her own faltering thoughts, but a bold description of the inner mind of the Almighty. She knew she was treading on holy ground and her imagination hesitates before being drawn inwards and upwards by the beauty of her vision. The poem ends in serenity, repose and the contemplative joy of those who know they are loved:

    They say there is a hollow, safe and still,

         A point of coolness and repose

    Within the centre of a flame, where life might dwell

    Unharmed and unconsumed, as in a luminous shell,

         Which the bright walls of fire enclose

    In breachless splendour, barrier that no foes

         Could pass at will .. .

    So in the centre of these thoughts of God,

    Cyclones of power, consuming glory fire –

         As we fall o’erawed

    Upon our faces, and are lifted higher

    By His great gentleness, and carried nigher

    Than unredeemed angels, till we stand

         Even in the hollow of His hand –

    Nay, more! we lean upon His breast-

    There, there we find a point of perfect rest

         And glorious safety. There we see

         His thoughts to usward, thoughts of peace

    That stoop to tenderest love; that still increase

    With increase of our need; that never change,

    That never fail, or falter, or forget …

    Gentleness, intimacy, perfect rest, tenderest love, grace that increases with increase of need, and a thoughtful God who never fails or falters or forgets, are ideas which provide the secure emotional substructure of her theology of consecration.

  • A Hard lesson – Taught by God to love one another

    You know how if you’re reading the Bible in a desultory fashion, …ok, I know we should always read the Bible expectantly, receptively, devotionally or whatever other word best describes paying attention. But to be honest, sometimes reading where you’ve read before, and knowing what’s coming, and being familiar with it all, it takes an ambush to get that attention.

    173_large Reading Thessalonians last night I was ambushed. Paul tells them, ‘You yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.’ (I Thessalonians 4.9) The point is so important Paul invents a word, "theodidaktos", which means ‘taught of God’. Now how does God teach converted pagans to love one another? What pedagogic methods does God employ? Well, not distance learning because love cannot be taught remotely. Not with multi-media angels making God point with power. And what learning outcomes does God set for us to demonstrate with critical awareness that we have learned what we have been taught?

    God’s love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, he tells the Roman house churches. Love is greater than faith and hope he tells the Corinthians. Love fulfils the law of Christ. All true enough. But this hapax legomenon,this word "theodidaktos" which Paul manufactured for the purpose, is a seriously disruptive word, suggestive of personal discomfort which is the inevitable result of being taught, not what to do, but who to be, and who to be like.

    Taught by God to love – followers of Jesus are taught by God what love is, what love costs, where love leads, how love works, why love hurts, where love is needed, and when.

    Taught by God to love – the greater love that lays down its life, the love that loves to the end, the loves demonstrated not only in words but in actions, – like breaking bread, washing feet, touching the broken, turning water to wine, loaves and fish into nourishment.

    Taught by God to love each other – which means when I don’t love I haven’t learnt the first lesson about God, that God is love, and that love is cross shaped, outward reaching, creatively persistent, compassionately imaginative, unafraid of rejection and itself fearlessly welcoming.

    God of love, teach us to love, so that others may say of us, theodidaktos, taught of God, to love.

  • Defiance of despair

    P28heschelkingselmav01 A religious man

    is a person who holds God and man

    in one thought at a time,

    at all times,

    who suffers in himself harms done to others,

    whose greatest passion is compassion,

    whose greatest strength is love

    and defiance of despair.

    Abraham Joshua Heschel, on whom be peace.

    Abraham Joshua Heschel was a friend of Martin Luther King, whose volume of sermons entitled Strength to Love is a 20th century spiritual classic. Heschel is second from the right, and MLK in the middle. The photo is called, ‘Praying with their Feet’. Amen, and Amen

  • The Silverburn Glass Cathedral – Let us Pay!

    D6192024d53708a63b3a105f4d31dd24_2 Silverburn Shopping Centre.

    95 stores over half a mile.

    18 Restaurants.

    3,000 staff, many sourced locally.

    2,500 parking spaces.

    1,000,000 square feet of prime retail and leisure space.

    13 times the size of Hampden football pitch.

    This is a massive retail cathedral, complete with liturgy, clergy, sacred music, architectural beauty, familiar rituals and symbols, and an all but tangible sense of people’s devotion to what’s on offer. This is new Jerusalem, centre of hope, renewal, personal fulfilment. The elements of a secular religious activity and devotion are unmistakable.

    Exaggeration? My biblical literary allusions getting the better of me? The feel-good factor of a new shopping mall unrelated to religious fulfilment?

    Here are two of the massive blue advertising banners,(at least 5×4 Metres), hanging outside retailers whose shops are yet to open but coming soon.

    There shall be sorrow no more, for Heaven has sent us Carphone Warehouse!

    Paradise is upon us, for J D Sports is coming soon.

    More than 30 of these banners have similar texts for the faithful, encouraging us to remain hopeful that in due time, ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’. Though when Julian of Norwich originally wrote these things she wasn’t meaning we would be able to buy all manner of thing on credit, in a glass cathedral, with adequate parking, multi-choice restaurant options, and a sense of being blessed by shopping for all manner of thing.

    The message is both subtle and seductive. Heaven approves retail therapy; ideas and questions about consumer overload, or responsible credit use, are heresies best avoided. The inner restlessness, those gnawing hungers of the heart, have their Silverburn spiritual answer, with apologies to St Augustine,’You have made things for ourselves, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you, spent and satisfied’.

    The sorrow of emptiness, of lack, of deprivation because what I want is not yet available, well my tears may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning when Carphone Warehouse opens. And for those who enjoy a religion that provides a sense of imminence, of immediacy, of God breaking into otherwise lacklustre lives – Paradise is upon us! And I will, yes I will, be able to look at, handle, long for, and yes, praise be, purchase, my own personal, identity conferring, spiritually fulfilling, trainers at J D Sports. Paradise!

    All of which said – I was so heartened to see so many people clearly newly in jobs, learning the ropes of retail customer service, trying hard and glad of a chance in life. That, I will never knock! You can see some of them over here at the Evening Times. And yes, it is cutting edge in the technology that reduces the carbon footprint so that M&S is powered by their own wind turbine in Aberdeenshire, and emits 95% less CO2 than a similar sized traditional store, and uses rainwater for flushing toilets. So a lot that’s good – but shopping isn’t an experience that fulfils our ‘ultimate concern’, the new trainers don’t quite reveal the utterly transcendent, and for all we might depend on our mobile phones, our deepest sorrows in life are unlikely to be the delay in the coming of Carphone Warehouse!

  • The danger of using prejudice as the short cut to (in)justice

    Was in the coffee shop today and the only paper on the rack was the Daily Express (The Deadly Excess). The headline in 2 inch bold "

    "70% Don’t believe McCanns"

    Now like most people who’ve thought about this at all, I have no idea what happened to their little girl, Madeleine. It’s a mystery, an enigma, a tragedy and undoubtedly, a crime. But what can it possibly mean to print a headline like that? What moral contortions might justify the use of such unsubstantiated nonsense?

    OK. 70% of whom? Oh, it turns out to be those who phoned in to the station, following the interview they gave to Spanish TV. So, in true scientific, objective, reliably monitored fashion, we now know that 70% of those who saw the broadcast, AND who felt strongly enough to phone in, don’t believe the McCann’s account of  the circumstances surrouinding the disappearance of their daughter.

    20071026 So here’s another statistic. 100% of those who phoned in are no wiser than the rest of us about what happened. Here’s another. 100% of those who phoned in have less information than the least informed policeman on the outer margins of an enquiry that has had its own very public shortcomings. And for good measure, here’s another. 100% of those who phoned in have no idea what it might be like to be a parent whose child is abducted, to not know if she is alive, and to live with the kind of cruel stupidity that allows editors to publish such verbal mince as in the public interest, or even as news. When will the public tumble to the fact that completely uninformed opinion solicited for a phone-in poll, has no evidential value whatsoever. Its value is to encourage a mindset that thinks public opinion is itself evidence. The old-fashioned name for doing justice by polling the ignorant, and deciding on guilt by subjective opinion, was lynching.

    The McCanns have been in the news now for over six months. They may or may not be telling the whole truth – how can any of us know. But until the truth is discovered, it is better not to condemn people with innuendo, public poll, trial by media, or any of the other processes that threaten that fundamental right that no one should have taken away – the right not to be condemned by blind prejudice – the word prejudice is interesting with a hyphen inserted; it then reads "pre-judice", that is, to judge before the evidence is heard.

    I lament the loss of fairness as an important strand in the fabric of our social security. One of these days those who unfairly accuse, who practice prejudice, may find themselves judged, not for what they have done, but merely on the basis of what someone else who doesn’t know them, thought about them.

    And in all of this, a wee girl is missing.

    Lord have mercy.

  • Not beyond our will

    0824505425_01__ss500_sclzzzzzzz_v11 We live by the conviction that acts of goodness reflect the hidden light of His holiness.

    His light is above our minds but not beyond our will.

    It is within our power to mirror his unending love in deeds of kindness, like brooks that hold the sky.

    …………………

    The meaning of existence is experienced in moments of exaltation. Man must strive for the summit in order to survive on the ground… his ends must surpass his needs.

    The security of existence lies in the exaltation of existence. This is one of the rewards of being human: quiet exaltation, capability for celebration. It is expressed in a phrase which Rabbi Akiba offered to his disciples:

    A song every day,

    A song every day.

    …………….

    I love this man’s writing; Heschel’s wise compassionate patience with imperfection, and the trustful imagination of his spirit, never fail to touch the deeper places of my own spirit.

    Abraham Joshua Heschel, peace be upon his name.

  • Read, mark and learn….the death of a church

    To make sense of this post read the earlier one from October 21 about my visit to the Great Western Auction Rooms, now located in what used to be Whiteinch Baptist Church. As noted there, the church closed in 1975/6, and I said something about what might have brought that about.

    In George Yuille’s History of Baptists in Scotland, published in the mid 1920’s, the following account is given of Whiteinch Baptist Church – we are talking only 80 years ago, so the church closed 50 years after the following was written. Read and ponder:

    The church was formed in 1906, with a membership of 14. the Pioneer Mission took the Church under its care, and the Rev W J Batters of the Ayrshire Christian Union, was called to the pastorate. mr batters rendered yeoman service to the cause and during his ministry the present iron and wood buildings were erected at a cost of £670. The Sunday services previous to this were held in the Whiteinch Burgh Hall, and the week night services in the Co-operative Hall. The lack of suitable premises, and the burden of hall rents made progress difficult during this period. In August 1908, the Church took possession of the new buildings and the membership considerably increased. In 1910 there were over 100 members. After seven years of faithful work, mr batters resigned, and in 1913 Rev J V W Thynne was settled as Pastor. Mr Thynne did well, but his pastorate was brief and in 1915 he was succeeded by Rev John Campbell, of Burra isle. In 1922 much to the regret of the Whiteinch congregation, Mr Campbell accepted a call to George Street Baptist church, Paisley. After a long vacancy of 19 months, the present minister, Rev J S Andrews, of Londonderry, was called to the pastorate. The present membership is 220, and the building is now quite inadequate to the needs of the church. A new Building Scheme costing £6000 has been launched and the members are working heartily to complete it. The record of the Church from the beginning has been one of hard work in face of many difficulties, and progress has been slow. A brighter day seems now to have dawned. Difficulties have been overcome, new opportunities are presenting themselves. A new spirit pervades the Church, and the future is full of hope.

    And within 50 years it was closed. Why churches close is as important a question as how churches begin. How does ‘a future filled with hope’ last only 50 years? This isn’t a question about this one church, but a question whose answers, and there will be a good few of them, need to be discerned, considered and, excuse the grammar, learned from.