Living Wittily

Multum in Parvo (II) The Importance of Books that are Hard to Read

"The biblical witness to God's revelation

leads to a response and participation in Christ.

This means in turn that epistemology is insufficient without ontology,

both in terms of the transformation of the believer,

and ultimately of the whole created order,

as the Incarnation makes knowledge of God

an engagement with being itself."

The words come from Karl barth and Hans Urs Von Balthasar, by Stephen Wigley. This is a rich and demanding study of the mutual respect and contested differences between two of the greatest theologians of the 20th Century.

Listening to Radio 4 last night on the way down from Aberdeen, there was a discussion about the appointment of the new BBC Science Correspondent whose remit is to make the leading edges of scientific knowledge and discovery "accessible". There was considerable worry that accessible means dumbed down, and that to popularise is to distort by simplification to the point where knowledge itself is dangerously reduced and pre-packaged.

The same holds for theology. By all means popularise, make accessible, eliminate needless jargon, be inclusive in writing, teaching and learning. But do not deprive key intellectual disciplines of the discourse needed for precision, necessary nuance, development of ideas, explorations of complexity and contested concepts. In other words, not all theology can or should be "accessible" if by that we expect to grasp, understand and integrate what we read on its first reading. If there are words we don't easily recognise, concepts that perplex and puzzle, sentence structures that force us to slow down, read again, and, bless us, think -then don't assume bad writing, or abstracted thought, or ideas under-developed or overworked. It may be that we are being educated, drawn out towards truth and insight beyond our comfort zones. Both Barth and Von Balthasar are such theologians, thinkers and intellectual mentors - if we have the patience and respect, to sit at their feet.

The Cloud of Unknowing and the Clouds We See Every Day.

"I've never seen an ugly cloud."

Driving home last night with a friend I haven't seen for 15 years, we were admiring the evening sky and sunset over Aberdeenshire. Blue pink occasionally smudged by dark gray as if a Chinese brush artist had randomly played with tinted paper to include a few contrasting shadows, long, thin one-stroke lines - not too dark, but warm gray and feathered at both ends as the brush was flicked up. The finished sky looked like a delicate watercolour, which would have been spoilt if it had been framed.

At which point he said, "I've never seen an ugly cloud." What strikes me about that quite spontaneous observation was the affirmative worldview it revealed. That my friend is travelling a hard road just now made the words even more poignantly positive. There are moments of meaning when a chance remark gathers to itself a significance made up of coincidence of circumstances, emotional preparedness, shared memories and that profound mystery of heart reaching out to heart in agreement and thankfulness. That was such a moment.

Since last night I've let those words dwell in those deep places where meaning slowly forms and understanding is never more than humble recognition that somehow love and life and laughter are definitive of human fellowship. I've thought often and sometimes thought long, about clouds. And I don't mean in the sentimental and fluffy sense of silver linings, and naive denials that clouds are somtimes harbingers of storm and can be ominous and well as beneficent. Yet William Cowper, that gentle 18th Century rural poet, whose courageous battle with depression and an oppressive predestinarian theology brought him often to breakdown, could still write words that were first penned for his own encouragement:

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,

The clouds ye so much dread,

Are big with mercy and will break

with blessings on thy head.

At the other end of the spectrum of Christian spirituality the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, urged the Christian that you can apprehend God through the cloud of unknowing by love, but by thought, never. That cloud of unknowing represents the mystery and beauty of God, like Moses in Exodus, who drew near to the cloud of darkness, where God dwells. So much in our self-explanatory, information sated, google shaped omniscient culture makes it hard to appreciate, long for, be content with, contemplate with a proper sense of our own smallness, the mystery that lies at the heart of all existence.

Perhaps the clouds are there to help us recognise the obscurity that limits our knowing, and to make us respectful of those opaque experiences and thoughts that tease and trouble, lure and disturb, attract and pull our minds and hearts towards that which is infinitely greater than even our most inspired imaginings. Out of such attentiveness and receptiveness, perhaps we will discover also, there are no ugly clouds.

Or as another wise man wrote, "May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.  May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.  ~Edward Abbey

 

 

Morning mist, nuclear disarmament and trinitarian structures

 

Travelling down towards Laurenckirk on a frosty morning, the metal foliage called wind farms emerged from the mist. The gostly grey and filtered sunlight meant the occasional blade reflected the sun - I couldn't time the camera to capture that. I'm still pulled two ways about these massive mathematically precise intrusions onto a natural landscape. The argument about whether they are a viable or effective alternative is one others know more about. It's the aesthetics that perplex me. Are they a blot on the landscape or merely an updating of the pylon lines that criss cross some of our most attractive and sensitive landscapes? I've gotten used to them, but is that a de-sensitization that is mere tolerance of the inevitable and a concession to engineering ugliness as the solution to the energy problem?

Up here of course wind farms are politically contentious. A certain billionaire rages against the loss of aesthtic beauty for the new golf course if these turbines are installed offshore in the line of vision of the privileged golfers who can affford to jet in to the proposed world class golf course.

But whatever the outcome of our search for renewable energy, it seems that in my lifetime we'll have to get used to the sight of machinery that still looks otherworldly, and makes those who've read War of the Worlds a bit nervous.

On another line entirely - I start the course on trinitarian theology next week, and these three bladed power sources, merging in the misty mystery of a Mearns  morning, are pictorial reminders of the significance in human thought and culture of threefoldness.

They also remind me of the early Ban the Bomb logo which was a badge I wore proudly as a teenager - a wee while ago.....

Multum in parvo (I) Nicholas Lash on "What Christianity Is"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the first of an occasional series. Sometimes a sentence or two says so much is needs to be taken with attentive slowness, even clause by clause, allowing it to build towards those moments of insight and recognition that open mind and heart to a richer apprehension of God, the world, ourselves and the infinite variations of those relationships that sustain our existence.

 The prose poem is often enhanced by being written as a form of blank or open verse. I did something like that in the previous post with A W Tozer and William Temple. And have done it before with theologians like Eberhard Jungel, Hans Urs Von Balthasar (I'm under a challenge to get that name included in a sermon without spooking a congregation !) and Kathryn Tanner.

The book Believing Three ways in One God by Nicholas Lash is itself an example of multum in parvo. I've read it twice before and am reading it again - and interested in the pencilled margin notes from last time. The following passage on page 54 has Q in the margin - in JMG code that means quotable, quote it, don't forget it, this is good!

What we call Christianity is supposed to be some kind of school

the purpose of whose pedagogy

 is to foster the conditions  

in which dependence might be relearned as friendship;

conditions in which

the comprehensive taming of chaos by loving order;

of conflict by tranquility,

of discord by harmony,

might be instantiated and proclaimed.

To use the Creed,

to make its articles one's own,

is, therefore,

to be pledged in labour towards the 'kind of heaven and earth'

in which our human work,

might be the finite forms of God's.

Oh yes!

 

 

What worship is, or can be.

The picture is from the centrepiece of the Ghent Altarpiece by Van Eyck. Based on Revelation 5 it depicts the central subversive paradox of the Lamb slain, adored, worshipped, and the centre of attention in heaven during the vision of John.

Two prose poems follow describing worship. They sit near the front of a notebook I kept years ago, and they are now like theological tram-lines on which my own understanding of worship runs.

 

The first recognises, as Tozer always does, that our knowledge of the Holy is both biblical and mystical, revelation and mystery, eternal and incarnate, humbling and affirming, transcendent and intimate.

The second describes how worship is transformative of the personality, character and spirit of a human being so that all that is within us may bless His holy name.  

What is worship?

Worship is to feel in your heart

and express in some appropriate manner

a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe

and astonished wonder

and overpowering love

in the presence of that most ancient Mystery,

that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause,

but which we call Our Father Which Are in Heaven. 

A W Tozer

 

For worship is the submission of all our nature to God.

It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness;

the nourishment of mind with His truth;

the purifying of imagination by His beauty;

the opening of the heart to His love;

the surrender of will to His purpose --

and all of this gathered up in adoration,

the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable

and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centredness

which is our original sin

and the source of all actual sin.

Archbishop William Temple

When being fair is ungenerous, lacks compassion, is self interested and is thus unfair

You don't have to be an avid trawler of online news, or a TV News addict, or a close reader of newspapers, Tabloid or Broadsheet, to be aware of the ironies that are darting around in the political rhetoric and economic pontificating and partially informed opinionating these past few days.

Let me begin with the word "fair". We all want a fairer society - that is an assumed given, stated with omniscient assurance by representatives of almost every political colour and position. Except each time it is repeated it sounds less like a moral given, and more like a vested interest mantra. Fairness is a matter of standpoint. Something is fair depending on which point I stand, my point of view. So even if fairness was an acceptable moral concept, it is such a subjectively loaded one that it isn't much use in social discourse, or discourse about society. 

Now - do I want a fairer society? Think about it. What relation does fairness bear to mercy? "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy", seems a reasonable and fair deal. If you care for troubled and suffering people, you'll be cared for when you are in trouble or suffering. But I'm not sure Jesus meant such a radical quid pro quo - mercy is precisely not giving someone what they deserve, but what compassion demands.

Do I want a fairer society? Well if everything is fair, then words like generosity and grudge become redundant because everyone gets what they get with no remainder. What is fair about giving a gift? What is fair about being given a gift? Where does generosity come on the spectrum of calculated entitlement we call fairness?

Do I want a fairer society? Does that mean everyone gets treated the same? But what about the ludicrously obvious fact that we are not the same? Doesn't the sheer diversity of opportunity, natural giftedness, circumstances of birth, socio - economic starting point, genetic inheritance, the happenstance of life's experience mean that, to put it in tautological terms, we are each very unique?

Do I want a fairer society? What does fairness look like for Stephen Lawrence's family. Justice isn't the same thing, though it is an essential aim of the moral and humane society. What was profoundly unfair, toxic and cruel was violence against a young man because of his colour. Justice does not put that right - it does however state the importance and uniqueness of each life, and the cost and consequence of violence, to victim and perpetrator. But the word fair is seen for what it is in this situation - facile and superficial. 

Which brings me to irony, the irony of elevating the word "fair" to the top of the political point scoring league. Yesterday we had Ian Duncan Smith promising he was not seeking to punish the poor by capping benefits. We had Vince Cable hand wringing about how to curb excessive board-room salaries, bonuses and other complex formulae for remunerative rip-offs. And various politicians speaking on my behalf as a taxpayer about what was and was not fair to me. It isn't fair that I work hard, earn money, pay taxers only to see these taxes fall into the benefits black hole. It isn't fair that I work hard, earn money and pay my taxes, and in a lifetime's work would not come close to earning a modest bank executive's annual package with bonuses.

Three comments more. First - to use the phrase "punish the poor" whether to deny it or recommend it, is to use the vocabulary of a welfare state suffering a serious case of semantic amnesia; it is also to reveal an unacceptable lack of emotional intelligence and social awareness.

Second to try to save some millions of pounds by capping benefits, while doing little of any real substance to curb excessive salaries and even less to deal with the problem of tax avoidance by the rich, is not only irony. It is a failure of nerve or perhaps more seriously, a deliberate evasion of moral principle by a coalition government surviving on expediency and compromise. These are not necessarily bad words, it depends what is compromised and to whom it is expedient.

And finally, I do not think it is fair the way politicians are using the word fair to justify policies, which should require criteria that look beyond the limited horizons of mere fairness. The cost of caring for the vulnerable and the poor, the old and the sick, the disadvantaged and marginalised, should not simply be lumped together with the admittedly expensive problem of welfare benefit dependency, and the exploitation of the welfare system. To do so is not fair - and nothing is solved if you replace one unfairness with another.

This is a ridiculously unfair question and I'm quite prepared to be laughed at for asking it - In the choice between capping benefits and curbing excessive salaries, what would Jesus do? I know - daft question. Fair enough! 

The Good Shepherd - but Without Sentimentality

Ever since farm days in Ayrshire I've regarded sheep with affection and interest. Jack Duncan was a good farmer - knowledgeable about the land, and careful and respectful of animals which he referred to as 'the beasts'. He was a keen if not great golfer who took a couple of clubs and some golf balls out into the fields on a summer night to practice and we got two shillings ( probably around £5 nowadays) each for retrieving them.

It was on his farm that I first helped with sheep dip, sheep shearing and working the sheep with a dog. My father trained working dogs, always the border collie, and sold them to other farmers, some of them going abroad. Not many people know that! I still remember a spring night walking miles across the fields with Jack Duncan, the dog gathering the sheep, and Jack taking out one or two that were limping, examining their feet, cutting off the horn where foot rot was beginning to take hold, and putting ointment on.

It's such experiences, listening to the peewits complaining loudly at our intrusion, and displaying the most stunning aerobatics as they dived and swerved towards us. These same memories are what makes the cry of the curlew the most poignant and powerful Scottish sound to my ears. I still can't hear that cry without a lump in my throat and a sense of gratitude that, for all that I might have missed brought up in the country miles from shops, I have a love and affinity with the woods and the fields and the hills, and all who live therein, that is part of who I am.

Jack Duncan's care for his 'beasts', (he's standing at the right in the photo taken when I was a boy!) and my father's reputation as a first rate dairyman who cared for the herd, mean that when I read Psalm 23, or John 10, I have no sentimentality at all about sheep and shepherds, or cows and byres (I helped muck them out at weekends!). It isn't sentimentality that sheep need - but watchful care, reliable provision, a safe environment and a knowledgeable shepherd. 

The coloured photo above was taken on a walk to Drum Castle - the photo could be better, but the image of sheep sheltering under a massive conifer is biblical, pastoral and evokes memories for me of a boy wearing large wellingtons, a holy jersey, and stressed jeans long before they were made fashionable, chasing across fields after a sheepdog, taking seriously the welfare of sheep. And whatever else the Lord is my Shepherd might mean, it has to do in my mind with that welfare that comes looking for us, that protective wisdom that singles us out for care and healing, that watchful care that means there are indeed times of green pastures and still waters, dark valleys and tables spread. If the goodness and mercy that follow me all the days of my life are the perfect expression of Jack Duncan's humane husbandry, then without an overload of sentiment it is true to say 'I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me'. By the way, that one line contains an entire theology of divine - human encounter, the I that I am, encounters the Thou that God is.

Psalm 23 is never quoted in the New Testament  but the pastoral image is recurrent, as Jesus described variously as the Good Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd and the Great Shepherd. I've read many a commentary on Psalm 23. It is such a richly textured, spiritually resonant text that echoes throughout the corridors and cathedrals of Western Christianity. The best reception history of this psalm is in the remarkably fine book, The Psalms in Christian Worship. A Historical Commentary. Bruce Waltke and James Houston (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) pp. 416-445.

But Jack Duncan remains in my mind and memory as the most persuasive existential commentary on the spiritual experience of being a sheep under the care of a good shepherd.

Stating the obvious again - revision is good for the soul!

Having read what I wrote yesterday, I've made the corrections to spelling, spacing and grammar! Since I'm in the middle of marking I guess yesterday's effort before revision was a narrow squeak B1 - now at least it is securely that!!

It isn't that anything I wrote yesterday was unclear because of the typos - but literary carelessness easily erodes the credibility of the writer, as at a subliminal or conscious level, the reader notes the glitches in the syntax and suspects glitches in the content. But  more than that - it is surely important to write with grace and accuracy, with precision and freedom, within the rules of language and grammar yet with creative and imaginative flair. So that factual statements are not undermined by inaccurate spelling; beautiful thought is not deconstructed by being expressed in carelessly shaped language; and persuasive encouragement is not contradicted by red pen marks all over the exhortation.

Of course the spell-check helps, and the wavy green lines - but stick to them all the time and language becomes standardised, those tricks of language and structure, the bending of the rules that identify originality, are flattened out into a prosaic properness lacking the very things that make writing interesting, memorable and worth the time to read and enjoy. 

Amongst those whose lives depend on taking care with words are poets. Elizabeth Jennings has a special place in my personal canon. Her care with words, and her care for human experience, her inward surrender to the power of words and to the wonder of language as the limited expression of what we sense is inexpressible but essential to say, make her a poet of immense sensitivity and insight.

Hours and Words

There is a sense of sunlight where

Warm messages and eager words

Are sent across the turning air,

Matins, little Hours and Lauds,

 

When people talk and hope to teach

A happiness that they have found.

Here prayer finds a soil that is rich

And sets a singing underground.

 

Let there be silence that is full

Of blossoming hints. When it is dark

Men's minds can link and their words fill

A saving boat that is God's ark.

 

O language is a precious thing

And ministers deep needs. It will

Soothe the mind and softly sing

And echo forth when we are still.

                     (Elizabeth Jennings, New Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 2002), 324-5

"O language is a precious thing......"

And therefore our prayers are to be crafted, shaped and formed out of the language of the soul so that the language of our prayers is not insultingly banal, lazily informal, or repeatedly recycled cliche.

And therefore our writing is to be thoughtful and careful, not pedantic nor neurotic in a colourless rectitude, but open and freedom loving, expressing in words the beauty and ordinariness of what is so about our lives.

And therefore our emails may have to take a little more time if our language and meaning are to be clear, and the expression of ourselves as writers is to display courtesy, respect and care for our words, because they convey courtesy and respect and care to the recipient.

"Warm messages and eager words..." - that would be a telling criterion for those emails and texts, those letters and prayers, those compositions in words, of our best thoughts and best feelings.

Stating the obvious - reading is good for the soul.

I wonder how many readers of this blog know the names and some of the books of Nels F S Ferre, A W Tozer, Elton Trueblood, Baron Friedrich Von Hugel, Evelyn Underhill, Alexander Whyte, Samuel Chadwick, Lesslie Newbigin, and more familiarly, C S Lewis?

What they have in common is entirely arbitrary, and I discovered it only because I happen to have read certain works of theirs over the years. They each recommend choosing one or two authors of substantial fare who should become lifelong conversation partners.

Ferre urged students to become an expert on one particular theologian or philosopher and use that knowledge as a benchmark, a critical measurement of everything else they read and thought.

Tozer, passionate evangelical that he was, enthusiastically read several Catholic books of devotion regularly and commended that practice to those serious about 'the knowledge of the Holy'.

Trueblood, a philosopher Quaker far too much forgotten today, recommended identifying several books as lifelong companions, including A' Kempis' Imitation of Christ, William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, Augustine's Confessions, Fenelon's Letters.

Von Hugel read Thomas a Kempis for 15 minutes every day, and one of the most complex and teutonic style philosopher theologians became intellectually docile and receptive to deeper truth.

Evelyn Underhill positively revelled in the writings of the Christian mystical tradition, her favourites being Van Ruysbreck, The Cloud of Unknowing and Augustine Baker's Holy Wisdom.

Alexander Whyte, Free Church of Scotland minister with a noble ecumenical sympathy was happy with the entire Christian tradition, from puritans to Carmelites, and from Boehme to Newman.

Samuel Chadwick, Methodist evangelist and College Principal and Bible Conference preacher and teacher of Christian holiness and perfection, had a classic Catholic devotional book always on his desk during Lent and Passion Week, and so soaked in the classics of Christian devotion.

Lesslie Newbigin in a little known book on ministry, The Good Shepherd, urges a similar regular discipline of exposure to biblical text, 'always having biblical work going with a scholarly commentary'.

C S Lewis in his introduction to Athanasius' The Incarnation, rebukes that chronological snobbery that thinks new books are preferable to old, and insists the reading of old books is essential for Christians to catch the scent of another and heavenly country.

With the advent of Kindle, there are a lot of these devotional, spiritual and theological classics available free or for very little. I'm currently working through The Imitation of Christ. Wonder if that saintly and stern Thomas would approve his meticulously written treatise being read on an electronic screen while travelling on the train, waiting at the dentists, or having a coffee in the favourite coffee place....

Hmmm...

A Search for George Herbert

A search for new books on George Herbert, the Anglican poet par excellence, brings up an intriguing not to say amusing range of options. George Herbert's poetry, to modern ears, can seem bizarre in its conceits and metaphors, flowery in its language, and at best distant echoes from a previous age. But his poetry has enduring value for human development and spirituality, and explores the intensity of guilt and gratitude, of self criticism and divine acceptance, of insatiable longing and unbearable bliss.

But the name also brings up books about and by George Herbert Mead, the American philosopher of social consciousness and psychology. He too explored the nature of the self, not through prayer but through the importance of play and game in developing social values and relations. The give and take of human activity such as asking and giving, seeking and finding, winning and losing, talking and listening becomes the basis out of which the self is created. Mead's work also has enduring value for human society

Then there are books about George Herbert Walker Bush. At which point you become aware of the bizarre juxtapositions of the Amazon search engine. And you become aware too of the weird fact that an Anglican 17th century priest and patron saint of devotional poetry, and a 19th Century philosopher of human development and social values, share the same name with a President of the United States whose contribution to human spirituality and development and social inter-relationships is of an altogether other kind.