Living Wittily

Kindle Utility and the Beauty of the Book.

Slowly, at first reluctantly and resistantly, but gradually and persuasively, I've begun to admit the usefulness, convenience and with the right book the fun and attractieveness of reading from my Kindle. In that one small device (bigger than the more recent versions already) I have Augustine's Commentary on the Psalms, Jane Austen's novels a growing library of leisure reading and maybe one day I'll try a more serious acadcemic book. We'll see.

But for me there will always be books that cannot be Kindled. Books that are now lifelong companions, with a personal history decipherable in the underlinings, margin notes and memories of moments of illumination. Books I love to handle because they are beautiful objects in their own right, binding and font, paper and ink, stitching and smell, giving a book its presence, recognisable, familiar, visible and ready to be reached for. Books which are best enjoyed as page turning back and forward, ease of finding and inviting glance or gaze, making connections from there earlier in the text to here and the next place as the dotted line of thought is joined up.

And then there are the few books that deserve to be as expensive as they are. Beautifully produced, a joy to handle, works of art and craft, so that the importance of the contents is validated by the care given to the making of the book. Amongst my books are the volumes I own of the Hermeneia commentary series, and since they were first introduced the standard and distinctive quality of the production remains astonishing. And now at last the three volume commentary on Luke will be available in English in the Hermeneia series. This is the year of Luke in the Revised Common Lectionary, and over the year these volumes will find their way to my shelves - I've a birthday in February for a start.

Eventually choices will have to be made about shelf room and that's where the Kindle wins every time. But for now, handling, reading and enjoying the art of the book remains a difficult to supercede pleasure.

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Snowy, Smudge and a Treasured Book.

Did I tell you that my favourite animal is the snow leopard?

And that I am now a joint sponsor of a Himalayan snow leopard, a gift from my daughter.

As part of the Worl Wildlife Fund deal, you get a small cuddly snow leopard.

I've called him Snowy, and the picture is of Snowy and Smudge.

Thirty odd years ago I read Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, and ever since have been Snow Leopard daft!

It is a wise, self-revealing and brilliantly descriptive account of his journey to Nepal to try to see the Snow Leopard in its native habitat. It is travel book, autobiography, journal, and in the most serious sense, a self-help book - his journey was in the aftermath of the death of his wife. On a five week epic trek, he is genuinely on a journey, unlike the overused sentimental metaphor of journeying glibly claimed by Easyjet pilgrims.

The Book Pyramid is an Architectural Triumph.

As a bibliophile, one who prefers a library to a shopping mall, and who believes libraries should attract the most creative and sympathetic architects, this is a beautiful place. As a statement of the continuing importance of books, it is a resounding rejoinder to the digitalisation of everything. And this is a public library, a place of beauty, quiet, learning, light and culture, housed in glass, like an educational greenhouse where people can grow.

Follow the link here for a guided tour of The Book Pyramid, a building of hope where the love of possibility and learning are made into a statement of intent. . e

 

Amazon Book Searches - A Quick Way to Become a Polymath :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went looking on Amazon for a recent monograph on Paul’s great charter of freedom and equality before God in Galatians 3.28. I found it, and it costs £66 – looks like inter-library loan time.

No Longer Male and Female: Interpreting Galatians 3:28 in Early Christianity (Library of New Testament Studies) Pauline Hogan (2008)

However the first page of hits for the simple search phrase “male and female in Paul” brought up some titles grippingly irrelevant for my purposes. Here’s three of them.....

A growth study of young lambs: comparing male and female Southdown, Suffolk and Cotswold cross lambs intensively reared on a barley diet fed at two different levels by Paul William Knapman (1976)

Pay Differences Among the Highly Paid: the Male-Female Earnings Gap in Lawyers' Salaries (Discussion paper / Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan) by Robert G. Wood, Mary E. Corcoran and Paul N. Courant (Paperback - 1991)

"Other People's Money": An Empirical Examination of the Motivational Differences Between Male and Female White Collar Offenders. by Paul Michael Klenowski (2 Sep 2011)

I took the photo in Glen Dye - it's a Scottish blackface sheep reared on a grass and bracken diet fed quite high up the hill!

Charity Book Shops, Machiavellian Tactics, and the Mess We Are IN!

The other day I was in a charity shop having a good natured exchange with one of the staff who was trying to get me to buy books. You'd think that would be easy. Getting me to buy books is like encouraging me to eat chocolate. But it was gardening books she wanted me to buy, and I'd asked about art books, then it was celeb biographies when I asked about poetry. Eventually I found something, having decided she had tried so hard it would be discouraging for her if I walked out without buying anything!

A pocket sized mordern edition, mint condition, of Machiavelli's, The Prince! Now this isn't a book about spirituality I know - though that week I was preparing a sermon on Jacob the self-interested cynical manipulator, and there seemed something appropriate, if not meant! No this is a book about bare-faced cynicism in the application of tactics of power, political survival, and developing skills of manipulation and getting your own way. It combines wisdom and ruthlessness, calculated risk with playing the percentage shots, distilled study of power, how it is gained and lost, while at the same time forming the inner habits, even an instinct, for personal advantage. Actually if you wanted a description of Jacob before Jabbok that just about does it!

The book is an education in self-interest, cynical exploitation of those least able to resist, acting ruthlessly against those who might resist in order to preserve a personal power base, anticipating an opponent's next moves and subverting them, using power to make the powerful stronger, and generally excluding or eliminating anything that might hinder the exercise and retention of power, including considerations of compassion, justice, and overriding moral imperatives. I'm thinking that much of that mentality is abroad in the political and economic attitudes of recession haunted Governments.

The word Machiavellian, which sums up all this ruthless, cyncial power hunting, is a bit unfair on Machiavelli. He was a Renaissance humanist. His book was written as a Power for Dummies,intended to win the favour of Renaissance Princes seeking to cling to power in the dangerous courts and corridors of 15th Century Italian Courts. But, as I say, it does raise for me the question of how far the word Machiavellian applies to the approaches and policies of the current Governement. 

That's another post perhaps - but Granny Tax I, the mooted Granny Tax 2, the pastry tax, the capping of charitable donations, the rhetoric but non-action against Tax avoidance by the wealthy, the comprehenesive and unsympathetic re-configuring of criteria for Benefits but little progress on reining in bonuses and extravagant salaries, the change to VAT criteria for churches.These are the mere headlines of an approach that seeks economic prosperity by risking being morally bankrupt. Alongside The Prince, I suggest a reading of the Prophet Amos, who had a few things to say about Machiavellian politics - I know, the anachronism is blatant. But the history of power as morally ambiguous and dependent on the moral character of those who exercise it, is a history that cannot be dismissed so easily. Whether it's the privileged rich selling the poor for the price of a pair of sandals in ancient Israel, or the privileged powerful of a Renaissance Court doing whatever is necessary to cling to power, or the social impact of the policies of a modern democratic Government hard-wired to an economics of global growth, the result is the same and the same two non Machiavellian questions remain. Compassion? Justice?

 So anyway, I asked how much? Which side of the shelf was it on, she asked. I showed her the gap and said 'There'. That OK she said. That's 50p - if it had been further along it would have been £1. Then in true Machiavellian fashion she said, But you could just pay the £1 - which I did!! Oh, and inside the front cover is a label that says Happy Birthday - now was the gift intended to cement a friendship, bribe a colleague, a veiled apology, an act of crawling......oh stop it! And get a life...

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...

Reading Dickens at Christmas

Instead of reading one of Dickens' novels this Christmas, I read Claire Tomalin's biography. There are pluses and minuses in that - those who enjoy reading Dickens know well enough the humour, the acute and astute observation of human behaviour, the use and abuse of caricature and pathos, the contrived plots which would embarrass most moderate versions of the doctrine of providence, and the narrative drive frequently interrupted by long descriptive passages, some of which are the most closely documented and vivid descritpions of early and mid Victorian London.

The real gain of reading Tomalin's biography is that it is precisely these prominent features of Dickens' genius and perennial appeal that are traced to their living context in Dickens' life experience. That experience was assimilated, reconstructed and written into the characters, plots and landscapes of his novels. Most of what I learned from reading Tomalin is the significance of such contextualising both as explanation of his immediate appeal to his readers, and as exploration of how a writer's own life experience can be transmuted into fiction without losing its connectedness to the author. Dickens' experience of poverty, of thwarted ambition, his struggle to find his way, and the appearance in his novels of characters and human characteristics traceable to those he knew and observed, are all shown to be woven into Dickens' Victorian tapestries. 

The biography reads well, Tomalin's research is meticulous and seldom pedantically paraded, at times she speculates about motive and argues from silence, not always convincingly, but she is in control of the content of Dickens' novels and well versed in the secondary literature. Her earlier work on Nelly Ternan, The Silent Woman, is well exploited in reconstructing the astonishing feat of secrecy and deception required to keep hidden the real relationship between Dickens and Nelly Ternan. This is told with care, understanding, but without excusing Dickens' behaviour and treatment of others in pursuing an alternative, even parallel existence, away from the public eye.

Each of the major novels is discussed and commented on from this same contextual perspective, and much light shed on the birthing process of each novel. That he wrote so much while living a life of self-consuming intensity is testimony to levels of energy and industry that at times defy belief - and adequate explanation. Today we might use the term driven, but even that diminishes Dickens' achievement, for there was undoubtedly an iron will, an obsessive determination to exact from each day of life the maximum quantity of productive experience.

Buit I finished this biography better understanding this complex and contradictory man, at times pitiless to those who thwarted him, yet capable of immense compassion and extraordinary generosity; capable of loving with utter devotion and yet equally capable of cauterising feelings and moving on without a backward glance. It's a sign of Tomalin's achievement that you read her book and have a much less romanticised view of Dickens - he is both increased and diminished in stature, because this is no hagiography, nor is it a piece of literary hatchet swinging. It is a life told mainly according to the evidence, and where there is speculation it is never unfounded. And we are left to wonder at this storytelling genius, who plays on human emotion like a virtuoso musician, bringing a country to a tearful crescendo at the death of little Nell, but who did not attend his own brother's funeral nor send an acknowledgement of his death.

The new Aberdeen University Library is stunning!

This afternoon I sauntered down Old Aberdeen enjoying the bustle of students, the autumn colours, a chill North Sea breeze, and the sunlight and shadows on the old buildings. And in the middle of this back in time olde worlde community sit several large modern buildings built over the years as the campus has expanded.

The latest one, the new library building looks like this!

When it was being built I was skeptical, harrumphing with disapproval at this immense greenhouse.

 I was wrong. This is a stunning building, a statement of confidence, an architectural art form that asserts the importance of knowledge and the central, crucial role of a library in any University. Walking towards it I was excited and moved by the sheer sheen of sunlight and sky reflecting outwards and downwards upon those coming under its shadow.

I think it's great such bold creativity is invested in making space attractive and surprising, the building exceptional in concept, and a powerful affirmation of the importance of space dedicated to learning, understanding and contributing to the intellectual and social capital that enriches us all. On the way back to the car I played with words and eventually formed a dedicatory haiku, or two!

Propagation of Thought

      Glazed green grass blades shine,

growing towards sun and sky;

greenhouse of wisdom.

The foyer brings you straight into the cafe so the place of learnin g and culture has one of its most  important departments in the front window - good coffee, light ambience and a buzz of stuff going on.

Then you look up and this is what you see! I took the photo with the permission of the library staff who love the place. Can see why.





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intellectual Discovery

Mind's aspiration:

thoughts beyond known horizons,

spiralling upwards.

 

This is a place I will want to come to, and come back to, again, and again.

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledging Life Enhancing Debts

Every now and again as a reader, thinker, theologian and writer I sit and list in my mind those who have helped me to read, think, do theology and write. Intellectual indebtedness is one of the most enriching forms of being in another's debt. Throughout the years as I have been reading and preaching, thinking and sharing, praying and talking, writing and listening, a number of voices have become familiar, known, trusted, and therefore significant to the point of defining of the way I now think and talk about what I believe.

The list grows, as does the debt. Walter Brueggemann, Jean Vanier, Thomas Merton, P T Forsyth, Evelyn Underhill, Jurgen Moltmann, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dorothy Day, Cicely Saunders, James Dunn, Jonathan Sacks, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans Kung, Julian of Norwich, Karl Barth, Lesslie Newbigin, Dorothee Soelle, Frederick Copleston; poets like Denise Levertov, R S Thomas, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, novelists too many to mention or even remember. And biographies or remarkable people, not because they were famous and therefore great, but because they lived lives of exemplary human complexity, in frailty and strength, with courage and sometimes fear, now making right decisions then wrong, but not always because the choices were clear or morally straightforward. Biography is theology enfleshed, embodied conviction, faith evidenced by life. 

And amongst those to whom I acknowledge a long indebtedness, intellectual and spiritual, is Frederick Buechner, whose writings include novels, essays and sermons. This is the year of publsished sermons for me. So Brueggemann's volume will appear and Fred Craddock's is already out. Buechner has preached since 1959 and the volume Secrets in the Dark is his selection of sermons, preached and written, over 50 years. The first, and still remarkable for its unabashed faithfulness to the God crucified in Christ, was entitled 'The Magnificent Defeat'. In an age of internet borrowed material and power point illustrated 'teaching', and rigidly pragamatic and practical applied preaching, this stands as a masterpiece of contradiction to all forms of homiletic dumbed-downness. This is rhetorical passion and biblical imagination, theological courage and pastoral honesty that will not short change the listener who comes to hear a Word from God. And throughout this book there are moments of revelation, and sometimes what we learn of the love of God comes through the preacher's own acknowledged frailties and needs. 

Late in the book is a sermon entitled "Waiting". Tomorrow and Sunday I'll quote a few paragraphs. Then maybe you'll believe the blurb above!

This was written while listening to Beethoven's Violin Concerto - there too there is tenderness, vision, playfulness, rumbustious confidence, tension and gentleness, force and movement, and all expressed with the virtuosity of the concert level performer - there are no homiletical concerts, but if there were Buechner would be on stage!

The Enduring Melody - the fellowship of joy and of suffering

My friend Geoff Colmer - whom I see about once a year at a UK Baptist conference, has gently encouraged me for some time to read The Enduring Melody by Michael Mayne. I first encountered the work of Michael Mayne in his volume This Sunrise of Wonder, which I consider one of the most life affirming and theologically literate books I've ever read. So my slowness in getting to The Enduring Melody is only because other things were pressing, and I know a book of such richness isn't one to skim, cram in, flick through or read dutifully. It should be read - and the verb to read means something much more than mere perusal or hurried shopping down the supermarket aisles grabbing what my limited time allows to throw into the mental trolley.

So for a week now I've been reading The Enduring Melody, and found myself in the company of faith, courage, beauty, wonder, loss, love, pain, anxiety, enjoyment and much else that is expressed in a book that alternates between very personal journal and beautifully crafted essay. In that sense there are two books - the diary of an illness that proves terminal, and essays on some the things that made up the enduring melody of Michael Mayne's life as a Church of England priest, a vocation lived with the classic pastoral genius of Anglican spirituality at its most inquisitively affirming.

The only other published Journal that comes near this for honest spiritual search, human and humane longing, wise reflection on the meaning of this person's life, regret that life is shortening but gladness for what it has been and still is, are the two volumes of Philip Toynbee, Part of a Journey, and End of a Journey. I remember very clearly reading them, the time in my life and the places I was when I did read them. And I remember too some of the moments when I simply nodded in mute but sincere recognition of those deep undercurrents of faith and fellowship that enable us to say I believe in the communion of saints. I'll write more about Toynbee soon.

Over the next week or so I'll write about The Enduring Melody. Not a book review, more reports of conversations between pilgrims who know, you've got to walk that lonesome valley, you've got to walk there by yourself. But pilgrims who also know that you don't ever walk by yourself, even if that is the way it feels. You walk with the company, felt or unfelt, of the One whose rod and staff comort; and you walk with those friends and companions in life who also walk their road and ours; and you walk, or run, surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, with perseverance looking to Jesus.