Living Wittily

Epiphany and the Memory of My friend Stewart.

A year ago my good friend Stewart suffered a catastrophic stroke, from which he died last May. One of his great loves was to find reasons for parties and gatherings at his home where he and Helen would arrange food and entertainment. And when Stewart organised things, they were choreographed with care and forethought, with the invited guests made welcome and expected to join in the fun and games, the food and drink and the laughter and conversation.

Stewart and Helen introduced Sheila and I to Epiphany parties. At such parties we would have soup, home made bread and then a large cake, preceded by games inside or out, with a memorable evening of shove ha'penny on the big dinner table.

I mention this because the season of Epiphany is here again, and memories of those Epiphany parties are still vivid and carry the emotional freight of good memories and meticulously planned fun and liturgy. Because we prayed and heard the story of the Magi and their gifts on those evenings too.

The Nativity picture by Burne Jones is one of my favourites, and it captures the splendour and mystery of gifts being brought to the child who is the Gift of God, the God who gives of God's deepest self. This post is in memory of a man who brought much love and laughter into my life, and whose spirituality may best be described as making the welcome of God tangible. He was deeply read in Christian mysticism, and for him deep thought, strong passion and embrace of human life in its diversity and fullness, were given expression in a man whose smile was a benediction, and whose prayers made you feel intrusive yet welcome to overhear a conversation between a man and God. There are many privileges in being a pastor, not least of them coming within the companionship of those whose love for God is contagious.

Like thos Magi of old, he was a wise man, who brought his gift, and worshipped the Christ child.

Poetry, Stained Glass and Being Content with the Inexplicable

Wit Wonders

A God and yet a man,

A maid and yet a mother:

Wit wonders what wit can

Conceive this or the other.

 

A God and can he die?

A dead man can he live?

What wit can well reply?

What reason reason give?

 

God, Truth itself doth teach it.

Man’s wit sinks too far under

By reason’s power to reach it:

Believe and leave to wonder.

(Anonymous – 15^th C)

Joseph kept these things and pondered them in his heart....

The incarnation of our Lord lies at the heart of Christian faith. When the arguments for and against virgin birth have been faithfully spoken and honestly heard, there remains a residue of truth, a core of mystery not amenable to explanation. A small part of that mystery is the faith of Mary who was able to say, 'Be it done according to your will,' and the faith of Joseph prepared to live with consequences he had no way of foreseeing. Clustered around the divine miracle of annunciation and incarnation are a number of smaller miracles of human trustfulness and openness to the coming of God. Perhaps we can be helped in our appreciation of such miracles of faith if we do a little reverent prying into the emotional rationale behind Joseph's reaction to Mary's own disturbing annunciation.  

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Joseph kept these things and pondered them in his heart.......

 

Every time one of our old Rabbi's conducts a betrothal, or a wedding ceremony he tells the joke about the angel who gives just one wish. He told it at our betrothal reception, when Mary and I got engaged.

One day a man did an act of great kindness. As a reward he is visited by an angel." Heaven has sent me to reward you. Whatever you want done, heaven will grant."  After thinking carefully the man said " Build me a bridge  from Jerusalem to Rome so I can visit my family  whenever I want to without going the long way round."

" Wait a blessed minute ", said the angel. "Have you any idea what that costs?  Fifteen hundred miles of bridge! Even angels have to stick to spending guide-lines and work within the constraints imposed on the miracles budget. Choose something else. Give me another option. " The man replied, " O.K. Help me to understand how a woman's mind works." After much thought the angel asked, "How many lanes do you want on your bridge?"

The rabbi told it as a joke. But hard as I've tried, and long as I've thought, I still don't understand the mind of Mary. What she thought, and what she felt about what happened to her, and what it did to us. I didn't understand why Mary disappeared for three months to visit her cousin Elizabeth. I didn't understand when she came back and said she was three months pregnant.  I didn't understand when she said " I've never been unfaithful.  The baby is God's gift."

I didn't understand why she, the woman, should be the one who got to decide on the name. I couldn't believe her story about being visited by an angel, who told her that, of all the women in the world, God had chosen her as his point of entry into human affairs,  I didn't understand, and I don't understand, in fact, I'll never understand how a virgin can be pregnant.

What I did understand, was that the Mary, who was promised to me, now belonged to someone else. What I did understand, because I'm not just a man, I'm a just man, was the need to protect Mary, from public shame and legal penalty.  What I did understand  was that our future stops here. No marriage! No shared joy! No family! Just this unwanted pregnancy forcing us apart. And what I did understand, and felt fully, unflinchingly, was the sense of opportunity lost, grief at the wasted possibilities, the certainty our dreams had ended.

 

But the dreams weren't ended! I thought, just like the just, sensible, unimaginative man I am, I thought, I'll deal with this rationally, quietly divorce her, and get on with my life. Still, before doing anything I decided to sleep on it!  But it wasn't a slumberland sleep. It was restless, anxious sleep; my mind and body tossing and turning. in synchronised uneasiness. Then through my confusion and hurt a shining clarity.  Interrupting my scheming and dreaming,  a voice,  that shook my whole being awake. An angel, not like the one in the rabbi's joke. He didn't ask  me what I wanted more than anything. Not that it would have mattered.  I wanted the one thing I could no longer have...Mary, uncomplicated, faithful, understandable Mary. Mary before all this angels and God nonsense.

But before I could think of what to say, the angel spoke. "Joseph, don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus."  I no longer doubted Mary. But what it must have meant for her, what it does to a woman to have others question her integrity as a woman,while all the time she is being faithful to God by receiving the gift of the Almighty. That I have not, cannot understand.

 I don't understand how Mary, carried the burden of truth, that she would mother God's son. I don't understand her openness to God, her obedient humility, or her determined yes to the purposes of God. Like the child she carried, she nurtured and nourished the truth of God's loving purposesfor us and the whole world. I don't understand the ways of God, not even when angels tell me.

In my dream a deeper reality than I ever imagined had come close to me;  And in Mary, the deepest reality of all was coming true. God coming close to the world in an inconceivable conception. God with us, love made flesh, borne and born through Mary.

The Rabbi's joke about bridges and a woman's mind? To unimaginative, rational patronising men,perhaps understanding a woman is miracle enough. But when it comes to bridges, through the faithful intuition, the imaginative love, the trustful yes of a woman, God built a far, far bigger bridge than a Jerusalem to Rome flyover.; the promised bridge between heaven and earth, through the faith of a woman, and the birth of a baby.  That's a miracle of love that exceeds all budgets, and like much else in this story, I’ll never understand it.  But I’ll sleep on it.

The Shalom Tapestry and Shalom as Vocation.

The Shalom tapestry is coming along slowly.

          Peace Haiku

     Shalom comes slowly,

     each stitch hand-crafted  prayer,

     for mercy, peace, love.

For a couple of months now I have lived with the form and the content of this beautiful strange and life-enhancing word. The quest for shalom means seeking well-being of heart and body, discovering energy and resilience to live faithfully and creatively for God, receiving from the Holy Spirit the freedom to trust our imagination to envision healing and wholeness and justice for our world.

This small  tapestry (4 inches by three) is part of a bigger project. When finished it will be the small panel at the bottom of a larger, brasher celebration of Shalom based on rainbow colours. Working with these Hebrew characters, and the English letters in the larger panel, is an experiment in contrast, construction and compassion. This small panel is entirely impressionistic. I love the sound of the word Shalom – the threads impossibly try to give sight to the sound as I say it or hear it spoken; the colours depict mood which you may rightly say is likewise impossible, but the attempt is still important; sometimes while working it I listen to music, carefully chosen music. So reader, what music should be played when stitching Shalom?

During the last two months of stitching Shalom I have prayed for Malala Yousafzai and Afghanistan; for Palestinian people and Jewish settlers; for children, teachers and families in Newtown Massachusets, and for children and families in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan; for people close to me struggling with the life they are living or trying to survive, and for others I hardly know but whose hurt makes prayer and work for Shalom both an enacted imperative and an essential attribute of spiritual integrity.

To seek Shalom and pursue it, to be a Shalom maker, to recognise again the words of Jesus ‘my Shalom I leave with you’, to lie within reach of and to trust the Shalom that passes all understand ding – not a bad way to live really, or to really live.And during Advent to share the longings of millions for peace on earth and mercy mild....

The Slaughter of Innocents.

President Obama has acted with great dignity and compassion in the days following the Newtown school massacre in Massachusets. Words are always necessary and seldom adequate, to express those deep longings and searing anguishes that can tear the heart out of us. Amongst the words he used was his rhetorical question about not allowing such tragic occurences to become routine. In addition to words, he came to visit, to offer his presence, to share the tears and the unanswerable questions of parents and colleagues and children. 

One of the most underplayed episodes in the Christmas story is the slaughter of the innocents. It rightly finds no place on our Christmas cards, though there are many older carols that describe and try to find a theological sense in a minor political atrocity which in Herod's day would have been 'routine'. Here the King launches a pre-emptive strike against children, and the political expediency of the action justifies the collateral damage, ensuring his power remains unchallenged. Death comes openly and irresistably, and human life laid waste.

The news this morning tells of ten young girls aged 7-11, killed in Nangahar province Afghanistan, because one of them accidentally hit a landmine with an axe while gathering firewood. No one set out to place a landmine amongst the children, but landmines are made to kill and maim, and planting them under sand and soil, they are simply death camouflaged and waiting. That no one planned such a tragic event is not the point. Somebody made that device and made it well - it did its job, with terrible efficiency and guaranteed results. Someone else planted it with lethal intent, and landmines have their own pre-set circuitry, and the lethal intent was realised in its murderous obedience.

All of which leaves me wondering about the President of the United States' heartfelt wish that mass murder of children must not become routine; the truth is, it has, and in more places than America. Weapons and devices manufactured for the explicit purpose of efficient, accurate, quantitative killing of human beings will always find fingers to pull triggers and hands to set detonators. Our own experience in Scotland and the lovely town of Dunblane means we have some understanding of the consequences of inexplicable violence visited on the innocent.

So I sit here wondering what the real human connections are between those weeping women and men in Massachusets, and those weeping women and men in Nangahar. Parents have lost their lovely children; innocent precious young human beings taken from us and from our world. I passionately believe in the precious uniqueness of every child; I cherish the human capacity to love and give our deepest commitments to children; and I utterly hold to a view of each human being as made in the image of God. As a Christian I am left today reflecting about the dangerous world we live in, and the paradox that human beings begin life in a place of great vulnerability, and depend on the love, safekeeping and provision not only of parents, but of their community. And into such vulnerability came the Son of God, a child whose birth triggered the power paranoia of Herod. And into, and out of, that maelstrom of violence a family fled for their lives - and God came close to us, Emmanuel.

So whether a military grade assault rifle and two highly engineered automatic pistols stolen from a mother's cupboard, or a cunningly concealed fully armed landmine detonated by a child gathering wood to keep her family warm, mothers weep. And the prophet's immense sorrow lingers in our hearing, "A voice is heard in Ramah wailing and loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be consoled."

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Francis Ashton Jackson - The Nativity.

This is beautiful.

By a little known artist, Francis Ashton Jackson, a fringe Pre-Raphaelite. 

Restored from a set of murals in a home for retired clergy.

 

Peace and hope and joy and love - and much laughter!

Last night went to the midnight service in Skene. Carol singing for half an hour, then a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be wanted in someone else's life - Emmanuel, God who comes to us seeking welcome as the one who will always welcome us.

The magic was walking there and coming out into a clear frosty sky, It came upon the midnight clear was illustrated on a North Eastern sky, a star studded sky, sparkling with jewels whose light flashed aeons ago, and now reaches us at precisely this moment. I took time to gaze, and wonder, and ponder, and feel very small, but held within a purpose vaster than that same swirling galaxy, itself one of billions of such realities.

When I look at the stars what are human beings that you care for them - well as a matter of fact, says God, pretty special. "For unto us a child is born...and the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory..."

Peace and joy to all who come here, not only today, but whenever you find your way here. Serve God wittily in the tangle of your mind - and the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind in the knowledge and love of God....

 

The Water that is Christ - and the Flowering of the Desert

 I found this remarkable exposition of a Psalm verse by Ambrose of Milan on a blog I now frequent regularly. Each day a substantial passage from the Church Fathers and Mothers is offered for meditation, often adhering to the liturgical and Saints' calendars. Will be giving Living Wittily a refresh during Christmas  and I'll give this and several other links worth dropping into for a horizon widening, or heart enlarging, or mind stretching exercise.

Meantime allow the strangeness and gentleness of a pre-industrial, pre-technological worldview to create images far removed from retail parks and shopping malls, forest stripping and greenhouse emissions, celebrity overload and unreal reality shows, credit crunches and Eurozones. Not that these don't matter - they matter so much that to live in the reality of them, and try to change them, the human heart needs resources deeper than human ambitions and capacities, and needs a centre that is more durable than the self-interested pursuit of personal and national interests. The passage deals with such strange things as sermons - but just for once, assume that each follower of Jesus who opens their mouth, has the opportunity to offer words that refresh, nourish, irrigate, and so are life-enabling, life enhancing and life-sharing. Isaiah 35 isn't seen as an Advent text - but the image of streams in the desert, alongside the promise in John 4 that the woman of Samaria would discover wells of water bubbling to eternal life are enough for me to make the connection.

When Ambrose says the words of Jesus are like clouds of refreshment, torrential rivers of joy, deep wells of life-giving, he is exulting in the Word made flesh, that comes to live amongst us, and in whose words are eternal life.

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Drink, then, from Christ, so that your voice may also be heard.

Store up in your mind the water that is Christ, the water that praises the Lord.

Store up water from many sources, the water that rains down from the clouds of prophecy.

Whoever gathers water from the mountains and leads it to himself or draws it from springs, is himself a source of dew like the clouds.

Fill your soul, then, with this water, so that your land may not be dry, but watered by your own springs.

He who reads much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others.

So Scripture says: If the clouds are full, they will pour rain upon the earth.

Therefore, let your words be rivers, clean and limpid, so that in your exhortations you may charm the ears of your people. And by the grace of your words win them over to follow your leadership.

Let your sermons be full of understanding. Solomon says: The weapons of the understanding are the lips of the wise; and in another place he says: Let your lips be bound with wisdom. That is, let the meaning of your words shine forth, let understanding blaze out.

See that your addresses and expositions do not need to invoke the authority of others, but let your words be their own defence.

Let no word escape your lips in vain or be uttered without depth of meaning.

Ambrose of Milan (c. 337-397): Letter 2, 1-2. 4-5.7:  from Office of Readings for the Memoria of St Ambrose, December 7^th, @ Crossroads Initiative.

Humour, Humanity and the Incarnation

Funny how unrelated things come together sometimes.  A TV personality caused outrage by suggesting strikers should be shot.

Explanations about being satirical with a sharp edge, or words taken out of context, or apology that people were offended, didn’t redeem the situation.

They simply betrayed the dangerous deficits of compassion, understanding and ethical responsibility that can lurk in what is intended to make people laugh.

 

Then I had a discussion with some students about laughter. A sense of humour is an essential attribute if we want to learn, understand, enjoy and come to love human beings. Humour and humanity come from the same word family.  What we laugh at says something unmistakable about what we live for and how we look at the world. Laughter with people creates deep bonds of togetherness, head nodding, hand-clapping, shoulder-shaking mirth, and joy in the oddity of things. Laughing at people is divisive, and tries to diminish the one laughed at.

 The contrast of inhumane non-jokes about other human beings called strikers, and one of the nicest compliments I ever read couldn’t be greater: “he looked humanely forth on human life”. The greatest humorists manage to bring humour and humanity together. Then our laughter brings us close to tears, because we see ourselves, our ridiculous, wonderful , mistake-making selves, in their work.

Advent is the time we celebrate the birth and humanity of Jesus, ‘when God almighty, came to be one of us’. Christmas joy is because Jesus shows us the God who does not mock our humanity, but takes it and restores it, and redeems our own humanity in that great original act of generous love. Emmanuel. God with us.

The two images are carefully chosen - the one smiley amongst the blue down in the mouths - and the Annunciation (Botticelli) of what would become good tidings of great joy, to all peoples. The juxtaposition of humour, humanity and the redeeming touch of God.

Advent - Enthusiasms and Idiosyncrasies (4) The Gardener at Christmas.

For some years now I've enjoyed the poetry of U A Fanthorpe. Her collected poems range across human experience as seen by a perceptive, compassionately critical poet whose emotional intelligence and moral sensibility make hers a voice that 'looks humanely forth on human life.'  Reflecting on the NHS, or the loss of passion and humanities in the Universities, or identifying those who now inhabit 'the draughty corners of the abandoned Welfare State', she has little interest in acid and lament, but rather holds up human experience to a scrutiny that is looking for what is of value, what is the dignity, what the obligations we all have to each other, to enrich and nurture life, and resist what withers, diminishes and devalues.

She always writes poetry for the Advent Season and most earlier collections include some of these - others are written for friends and family.

 

The Gardener at Christmas

He has done all that needs to be done.

 

Rake, fork, spade, cleaned and oiled,

Idle indoors; seeds, knotty with destiny, rattle

Inside their paper jackets. The travelling birds

Have left; predictable locals

Mooch in the early dusk.

 

He dreams of a future in apples,

Of three white lilies in flower,

Of a tree that could bear a man.

 

He sits back and waits

For it all to happen.

U A Fanthorpe, Collected Poems 1978-2003 (Calstock: Peterloo, 2005) page 400