Living Wittily

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  • Embarrassment

    How embarrassing for man

    to be the greatest miracle on earth

    and not to understand it!

    How embarrassing for man

    to live in the shadow of greatness

    and to ignore it,

    to be a contemporary of God

    and not to sense it.

    Religion depends upon what man does

    with his ultimate embarrassment.

    Abraham Joshua Heschel, peace be upon him.

    I wonder if this was a gentle play on the more serious suggestion of Tillich’s ‘ultimate concern’. A reminder that God is ultimate,and the ultimate response of human beings is attentive, adoring wonder that is content to be embarrassed by knowledge too wonderful for us.

  • Silencing the Song of the Ruthless

    Long, long ago, during the latter days of the biblical theology movement, when massive tomes of biblical theology built on synthesised and sophisticated learning were becoming a species as endangered as dinosaurs, and perhaps for similar reasons of mismatch between evolution and environment, a young Lutheran biblical scholar began to write about the Old Testament. What made him different, interesting, provocative, was that he was….different, interesting and provocative!

    Brueggemann I’ve read Walter Brueggemann for over 30 years, from one of his earliest books on Hosea, till his latest books on the theology of Jeremiah. I’m not always comfortable with how loosely he hangs to biblical history and how free he is in imposing canons of narrative criticism on the biblical narratives; at times I think he is plain wrong, but often, very often, I think he is plain right. Or if not ‘right’, then his interpretation of biblical text feels the most persuasive, sounds plausible, is relevantly contemporary and applicable; and because Brueggemann respects the angularity of the text, and the right of the text not to fit easily into our modern presuppositions, I don’t sense, as I often do in other commentators, an anxiety that domesticates the biblical text to make it sound more safely ‘biblical’. Brueggemann is uncomfortable with the imposition of ‘right’, ‘correct’, ‘true’ interpretations, if by that we think we can establish beyond dispute what a biblical text must mean for us now, or what it must have meant, or how it must have been received, by the original audience. He is far too open to the work of the Spirit in the interpretive process to think that our puny words can finalise the meaning of the Word. Speaking of words, words like stimulating, insightful, provocative, imaginative are now cliches as reviewers search for adjectives to describe his writing on the Bible. But they remain true.

    There are a number of recurring concerns for Brueggemann. He is a brilliant diagnostic analyst of the psychology of power; he understands as few biblical scholars do, the anatomy of the body politic; he rages with outrage against the empire of global consumerism, and the hegemony of monetary power. And from the other side he has a genius for discerning the strands of hope woven through human experience; he is an enthusiast, in fact he seems at time obsessed with, the liberating energy that drives and informs the divine justice. He understands the complicated unorthodoxies of the prophetic mind that refuses to be conned by the comfort songs of the prevailing culture, and becomes a translator not only of prophetic texts, but of the prophetic intent of the One who says, Thus says the Lord.

    Nm_pakistan_071103_ms_2  So as Remembrance Sunday approaches, and I reflect on Isaiah 25 to find important words to say into a service that for many older people is always encumbered by powerful emotions surging up from deep memories; and a service for all of us who live in a world where oppressive systemic violence and random ad hoc violence fuel conflict, I wonder what Brueggemann makes of these remarkable words. And I pray and think and read. Much of the sermon is ready – The title, "Silencing the Song of the Ruthless" comes from the text – and in a world where monks in Burma are imprisoned and disappear, and in Pakistan where lawyers are beaten up and arrested, the song of the ruthless is being heartily sung, and needs to be silenced.

    I’ve learned to stay away from Brueggemann till much of my own thinking is done – his ideas are far too borrowable. But as usual, I find in a few of his phrases, important things I wouldn’t know where else to find – and my sermon is the better for this Lutheran scholar, this prophet’s prophet. I thank God for one whose piety drives his scholarship, and whose scholarship critiques his piety, and one who is the enemy of that defensive timid piety that will not question its own assumptions! May this uncomfortable, discomforting prophet, go on writing for a Church called to sing the song of the Lamb, which will silence the song of the ruthless.

  • send thy roots deep down…….

    Cross O Tree of Calvary,

    send thy roots deep down

    into my heart.

    Gather together the soil of my heart,

    the sands of my fickleness,

    the stones of my stubbornness,

    the mud of my desires,

    bind them all together.

    O Tree of calvary,

    interlace them with thy strong roots,

    entwine them with the network

    of thy love.

    Chandran Devanesen.

  • 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!