Living Wittily

Friendships, Frustrations, Fulfilment and Filled-fullness!

Been to Aberdeen today where I was preaching at the church where I was previously pastor. As always, welcome, laughter, sharing of much experience, a good number of new faces though some of those I know best were on holiday. Caught up in the afternoon with others for lunch, then afternoon tea with two of our closest friends in Aberdeen, laced with conversation about mysticism, inter-faith dialogue, what Jesus meant by life abundant, Hans Kung, and much catching up on each of our families.

Left to come home around 6.00p.m. when the day started taking unexpected turns. First, 10 miles south of Aberdeen a sudden noise as if a jet was overtaking us - but it was a puncture and the road noise on the non slip surface made it sound as if the rear axle was about to come off. A dangerous part of fast road so we nursed the car into a narrow road entrance. Dressed in the Sunday clothes unpacked spare wheel, jack and wheel brace. Except said blessed wheel brace was a useless piece of cheap soft metal that slipped off the wheel nuts as soon as pressure was applied. So phoned the AA. The cavalry came - and with a two foot lever and a wheel brace the nuts came off - no idea how this could have been done with the equipment supplied by the car manufacturer.

By this time it's 8 o'clock we are 140 miles from home, hungry but once again mobile. We stopped 15 miles further on at The Gang Faur and Fair Waur, an old fashioned, nae nonsense transport cafe which serves food as if calories were their speciality - which they are. Just after I ordered the filled roll I saw it. The baked rice pudding - with the dark nutmeg skin. Decided I'd see how I felt after my fried egg roll. Surprisingly I was still interested so I went back - filled roll and pudding, a balanced meal. The plateful was, how can I explain?  You know how nouvelle cuisine is little portions arranged on a large plate; this was nae messin cuisine, large plate and large helping. I staggered to the table with the prize, and spent ten minutes proving that even if faith can't move mountains - if it's made of rice pudding, I can.

On the road home, listening to Classic FM, Elgar's Love's Greeting, written for his wife. Hearing this beautiful piano and violin, looking over the mearns to the hills, and then the background outline of the Perth hills, with a setting sun, pink coral laced clouds, against a sky as clear as blue crystal, I felt one of those surges of peace and spiritual at homeness - such as happens only after the renewal of rich friendships, the frustration of a puncture, the inner glow of rice pudding, and against the background of a sky that is an artist or photographer's dream, - and all shared with Sheila ( who by the way had an equally challenging pudding - rhubarb crumble and custard - but I finished mine!)

Welsh Baptists, Blackwell's Oxford and Plum Tatin

My time with the English Speaking wing of the Baptist Union of Wales at their annual Assembly was a great experience of cross fertilisation. Ideas, new visions, evolving strategy, long perduring problems (why do we insist on calling problems 'challenges', as if that made them easier to solve!), tough decisions, balanced realism along with equally balanced imaginative and hopeful faith - all these and many conversations with ministers, church leaders and delegates.

My own ministry was warmly appreciated, something that no amount of experience should ever take for granted. I've always found such affirmation humbling, and important in supporting ministry by necessary encouragement. For myself I greatly enjoyed developing some themes I've thought about and wanted to preach.

The new President is Peter Dewi Richards whose Presidential address was a crucial contribution in the life of English speaking Welsh Baptists. Peter was for 15 years General Secretary and knows the churches, the associations and many, many of the ministers and church leaders. In his address he touched prophetically on such issues as the importance of ever closer collaboration between the English and Welsh speaking Baptists; the necessity for denominational distinctives to enrich and foster wider and more generous ecumenical co-operation in a common bearing witness to Jesus and the Gospel; and the Gospel imperative for Christians to be in conversation with other faiths in a dialogue aimed at deeper more sympathetic understanding of each other, and dialogue aimed at social and moral co-operation on matters of national and global interest. The result was an address that spoke to Welsh Baptist Experience locally, nationally and globally - and delivered with long earned authority, unmistakable Gospel passion, and generosity of mind and heart that was deeply moving to witness. I've never heard a better address to a denominational assembly by a President, and it was a privilege to be there.

Following the Assembly we went over to the vicinity of Oxford to share a brief holiday with family who were in the area. This meant a visit to the place where all Bibliophiles eventually come - Blackwell's. Bought only three books - two of them on my to get list anyway, the other a spur of the moment purchase that now seems less must-have than it did before I paid for it. I'll read it, and say something about it - if it's worth it! But much of the three days was spent in family conversation, hilarity and a determined effort to sample Tea Rooms and Pubs as places of refreshment and necessary replenishment. Thus Queens Tea Room in Stow on the Wold gets first vote for a superb, delicious, light gluten free double-decker Victoria sponge for one of our party that was devoured as very manna from heaven - I had the walnut and coffee cake accompanied by Cinnamon Chai tea - in the Cotswolds. The Swan is a pub by the riverside - only recently opened after flood damage that immersed the interior in 4 feet of local river - the only time in the history of a village dating back hundreds of years. The landlord a cheerful, philosophically inclined recently retired rock musician who reckoned the flood merely hastened the refurbishing process. The food was superb - apart from Cotswold Lamb done absolutely right, may I mention the open Plum Tatin with Pecan and Maple Ice cream - the plums caramelised with the blowtorch and scorched enough to make them bitter-sweet. One of those desserts you don't want to finish and can't wait to eat. .

Speaking truth to twaddle

Browsing through the recent issues of First Things (The March 2008 Issue), I came across this interestingly no nonsense observation on what the Lord requires of us today:

It’s always an encouragement to see a bishop speak truth to twaddle. The National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry chose as the theme for its meeting in San Antonio “Paradigmatic Changes in Hispanic Ministry.” The archbishop of that fair city, Jose Gomez, said in his address to the council, “The Scriptures don’t talk much about paradigm change. Instead, the Bible talks about kairos—the time of decision. . . . . The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only real paradigm that matters. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom is at hand. The decision each of us has to make every day is this: Will we repent and believe? Will we continue our daily conversion to Christ? Will we try every day to more and more conform our lives to Christ and to his ­teaching?”

I couldn't say it better.

Still Living Wittily - The 500th Post

When I started blogging it was an experiment in thinking, writing and conversation all in one. I do some of my best thinking with a pencil, pen or keyboard - in any case through writing. This isn't for everyone, and plenty of folk think better than I do without all the in between stuff. But writing involves a process of word selection, sentence construction, self-expression through the discipline of articulation, and is an important way in which I theologise, ruminate, laugh at myself, pin down experience long enough to have a better look at it.When this is done with a pencil, pen, paper in the absence of a keyboard, it's also a way of making sure at least some of the significant stuff that flows through my stream of consciousness doesn't float away unobserved, unregarded and unappreciated.

A number of folk comment either on the blog or by email - and some who know me pick up conversation around the themes and idiosyncracies of Living Wittily. I'd never put myself in the same universe of spirituality, theological fervour, lucid expression or obsessive writing as Richard Baxter - but he said of his own humungous output, 'I was but a pen in God's hand'. My own claim is that 'I am but two index fingers prodding a keyboard, to my heart's content'; whatever blessing it might otherwise produce for those who happen by Living Wittily is just another reason to prod on. The portrait of Thomas More links to the words at the head of my blog page, because I am still persuaded that living faithfully for Christ, thinking Christianly and looking on the world with a sense of the purposefulness and mercy of God, requires of us that we "look humanely forth on human life", and recognise that we are called to "serve God wittily in the tangle of our minds". Christian wisdom might be another term for such intentional effort to know, to understand, and to live faithfully after Christ.

Necessary tedium in the service of the Gospel?

Not tired of blogging - just tired. End of term marking and QA processes work within tight deadlines, and a number of other commitments are unavoidable at this time of year and seem to come in waves of several at a time. So - not complaining, just explaining uncharacteristic levels of literary silence.

Friday started at 5.a.m. and included a 6.15 am flight to Gatwick, two examination boards at Spurgeon's, then the plane back at 6.30 - except an emergency landing by another plane delayed take-off for another hour while we were on the plane waiting to taxi.

Saturday at the Ordination and Induction of one of our students in bonnie Bo'ness. One of those occasions when many things come together - a person's sense of vocation, years of preparation, anticipation and hard application, the affirmation of a call from a local congregation and the confirmation of that call by the wider fellowship of our Baptist communities in Scotland - and this in the context of worship, prayer and celebration of the Gospel and the Christ who calls us to follow after him, faithfully and even recklessly.

Sunday worshipped at our own church, spent time talking with good folk whose ways of dealing with what comes at them in life go far to explaining why anyone would want to be a pastor. To love as we've been loved, to strengthen through encouragement the weak knees and uphold through prayer the feeble arms, as people of faith just get on with it - and when it gets too much, well many a time the grace that is sufficient comes to us through those other fellow travellers who come alongside us and walk awhile.

Monday, back to College and a staff meeting to catch up with where we each are, what's on our agendas, and what still needs doing. Another week with a diary that is ridiculously optimistic about energy, time and presence all being able to be held in an effective and productive balance. But lunch was shared with the Eejits, a group of friends who try not to take ourselves too seriously, but who in conversation and shared story take the Gospel and the Church with both seriousness and we hope, a creative if at times critical playfulness.

Tuesday morning till Thursday late evening it's meetings - I'm trying to develop a theology, even a spirituality, of meetings. Agendas, minutes, apologies, business arising, financial statements, reports, feedback analyses, candidate papers, publicity and promotional concerns - all of that admin paraphernalia shouldn't be allowed to disguise the realities behind the at times necessary tedium. These realities are people - students and their families, staff and their families, colleagues in the University and at the Baptist Union, churches looking for relevant, faithful and available ministries, and a Gospel worthy of our hardest work, our best ideas, our clearest thinking, and well worth any amount of tedium that enables the coming of the kingdom - watching a seed germinate and grow in real time isn't the most instantly gratifying pastime.

But wait. If you have faith.....a grain of mustard seed.....eventually birds building nests in branches. Sometimes in the committee (that greatly abused structure for human conversation and decisions) it helps to envisage a mustard seed. In fact, maybe this week, at the various committees, along with the pens, the stationery, the mint imperials, the bottled water, there should be, placed on the top of the agenda paper, a mustard seed - a small subversive reminder that we don't know everything now, don't see all that can be, and our words and dreams may have a significance beyond the limitations of our too easily bored attention span. Anyway I hope so. In fact, if I have faith as a grain of mustard seed......

Little green men, patience and a tiny pebble.

Spent the day with the good folk of Adelaide's.It was a day of quiet, reflection and prayer and lasted till around 3.30 in the afternoon.

Walking back from bath street to Central Station I crossed at least eight ( 8 ) pedestrian crossings and they were all showing the wee green man.

Having spent a day praying and reflecting, trying again to experience slow, put the brakes on rush, possess my soul by learning patience, not sure what the message of that was. I really thought as I came to the Bothwell Street junction I'd be stopped by a red and would be compelled to practice that futile gesture of impatience, pressing the button as if repeating the process would change or speed up the phasing of the system. But it too was at green, which meant I arrived at the station a bit early for my train.

Never mind. The train would probably be leaving from Platform 11A,that one that's a five minute hike to the nether regions of platformworld. But of course today it was to leave from Platform 13.

So having saved all that time by the ubiquitous green man, and not having to walk half way home to reach Platform 11A, the time I saved was spent impatiently hanging around waiting for the train to leave.

Need another quiet day to reflect on the meaning of all that.

But nothing to do with any of the above, from a day of reflection one line is worth quoting here - think of it as a tiny pebble in your trainer, unignorably there and needing attention:

'If physical hunger is the result of social injustice, as the Sermon on the Plain has it, then hunger and thirst after righteousness is the beginning of the way out of it.'

Luke and Matthew - Sermon on the Plain, Sermon on the Mount. Need both of them to come anywhere near the rich revolutionary possibilities that lie hidden in the words of Jesus.

Blogging milestones.

Statistics aren't always misleading. Sometimes they simply state facts.
So.
I've been blogging now for exactly 500 days.
During that time I have written 479 posts.
Goodness knows how many words.
Reckon that makes me a blogging addict, or an incurable writer,
or a conscientious contributor,
or a vocationally driven literary exhibitionist whose love of words is now confirmed as a lifelong dependency,or someone who needs to get out more (true), but not wearing that hat (oh go on, says Margaret).

I've enjoyed being part of that invisible community of folk who drop past, sometimes comment, or email. So long as interesting things happen in the world, as long as theological study remains both intellectual fun and context for prayer, as long as there's stuff to laugh, weep, shout about or celebrate, I'm likely to find time to blog.

The unholy trinity of 'Money, Football Dominance, and the Cosmic Scale Ego'.

Don't know how many regulars to this blog have any interest in football. But I think most probably have considerable interest in issues of justice, human flourishing, use and abuse of power, and the dangers of globalised capitalism and consumerism when they are made the absolute standard by which human activity is judged. So from a weekend of action and news - some reflections.

Queen of the South, a wee team from Dumfries, played in the Scottish Cup Final against one of the two the wealthiest clubs in Scotland. The final score of 3-2 to Rangers points to a close game, and the sheer romance of a rural town virtually emptied as 17,000+ went to support the local team. David and Goliath it wasn't - cos the big guy won this time. What was recognisable was the sport, the human experience of competing, trying, and knowing that though there can only be one winning team - played the right way for the right reasons, everyone comes away with more than they took.

Hull City played Bristol City for the final place in the Premier League. The winning team would find its finances boosted by around £60 million. So Dean Windass, 39 year old striker with the build of a slightly out of condition rugby player, hit one of the best timed volleys of his career, and netted the club £60 million. No pressure then. With that kind of money, how many of the current squad who worked to get the team into the Premiership, will be there after the start of next season, when that kind of money is around to buy some security and success. How far should money count in a sport, in the life of a sports player?

Which brings us to Chelsea, whose owner is one of the richest men in the world, who spends millions the way the rest of us spend 10p pieces, and who has injected hundreds of millions into the Club. That explains the quite astonishing arrogance of their Chairman Bruce Buck speaking after Chelsea sacked Avram Grant:


We have had a great season," said Buck. "In the four competitions we were in, we were runners up in three of them. But we have very high expectations at Chelsea and a couple of second place finishes is just not good enough for us."

He added: "Although we never would have thought in September when Jose Mourinho left that we would be able to make it into a Champions League Final - as we did, and that is fantastic - Chelsea is here to win trophies so, although it was an excellent season, we are still disappointed."

Now I'm not naive enough to think that a huge, lucrative, ego factory like top flight professional football should by some miracle show the slightest display of such human virtues as altruism, due deference to the excellence of others, fairness, or even at a push evidence of actually enjoying the game itself. But there are levels of irrational expectations behind that statement that border on religious fundamentalism rooted in worship of a God named ' Money, Dominance and the Corporate Cosmic Ego'. (Buck is pointing to said deity in this photograph - note the open mouthed worshipper on the left). The ruthless disposal of a failed manager, after 8 months having inherited a club in crisis, and on a definition that counts three runner's up places in four competitions (one of which was lost by the captain of the team slipping as he took a penalty that would otherwise have one the biggest of them all) as not good enough, is an act that betrays a truly scary worldview. Some of the most ruthless military leaders in human history would struggle to compete with such expectations after 8 months in charge. Alexander the Great took a bit longer......

All of which means what? Football is a major global industry, increasingly used as a shop window for the world's most powerful global capitalist interests, and now the sport itself has become the means and not the end. Left me wondering if my deep moral repulsion at such power seeking and financial muscle flexing in sport is only one of scale. The two Scottish teams in the final need money, and money and status are at the centre of professional sporting motivation, so they play the same game. But equally I'm quite sure players on £200,000 a week!!! is a moral issue of another order. And the sacking of a manager in such cirucmstances as Avram Grant, explained with the liturgical solemnity of a High Priest spokesman of ' Money, Dominance and the Corporate Cosmic Ego', demonstrates with brutal clarity, that when money speaks, some people hear it as the word of god (small captials intentional). They also live under the quite irrational belief in the divine right to win.

Much to ponder as a once football player, a lifelong football fan, and a follower of a different God, who speaks a different discourse, whose goals are very different, whose criteria for excellence are not centred on universal domination, and whose view of human beings is, apparently, not as ruthlessly exacting as those held by Bruce Buck. But then the God I refer to never finishes in penultimate place - indeed hear the Word of God, (capitals intentional this time): - the last shall be first and the first shall be last - no place then for the penultimate or the ultimate then. Winning isn't everything, thank goodness.

St Deiniol's 1. Study is slowed down prayer.......

I've just spent five days at St Deiniol's Library which was restorative, relaxing, interesting, modestly productive, and reassures me that my brain can still be kick-started given the right kick and the right fuel! What makes St Deiniol's special is the people who go there, the Library itself with its atmosphere of prayer and learning, the ethos of Victorian ingenuity and support for humane learning, and the overall concept of a residential bolt hole for those who want to pursue divine learning or whose vocation is theological education - which if we are to be adequate to the task presupposes that our own theological education and commitment to divine learning remains both an enthusiasm and a calling.

Let's talk ethos. The original oak interior of the library has been preserved, including the ingenious arrangement of shelves allowing maximum books in available space. Unlike many academic institutions, there isn't the same urgency to move older stuff to the less accessible stacks, so much of the original older library is there mingled with the new - I worked a lot on psalm 119 for reasons I'll mention in a later post. But I was happy as Larry (anyone know the origin of this phrase?) sitting at a table beside Neal and Littledale's five volume Victorian bric a brac shop of Patristic comment on the Psalter, Spurgeon's homiletic supermarket called the Treasury of David, the venerable two volume J S S Perowne, devout Anglican commentator on the Psalms, the equally imposing commentary by Joseph Addison Alexander, Reformed Calvinist and important conservative biblical scholar at mid 19th century Princeton, as well as the latest Hermeneia volume Sean enthused about earlier this year, and several of the spate of recent usable sized and theologically enriched commentaries on Psalms by Bob Davidson from Glasgow, John Eaton of Birmingham  - and a new discovery I'll blog about soon. Point is - though several recent important volumes weren't there, much that isn't so easy to find is.

But what gives working in the Library an added sense of prayerful purpose is the early morning pre-breakfast Eucharist for those who want to communicate. To join study with the wider church at prayer was an important reminder each day that theological study and theological education has its goal in a developing, deepening devotion to God. The liturgy is simple, carefully crafted, each day was conducted with the right balance of dignity and personal warmth, and is shared by people representing the diversity and richness of the Body of Christ. The quiet coolness and filtered light of the library add to the sense of being about God's business, physical reminders that study is slowed down prayer, quietened thought, and instilling a gentle awareness that to study is to want to know, and to want to know requires an inner humility that recognises there is much to learn, much to receive, and much for which to give thanks - including the gift of the work of those from whom we learn.

I read a chunk of Bonhoefer's Discipleship, a book which decisively frustrates any attempt at skim or speed reading, information filleting or desultory browsing. Bonhoeffer is uncompromising, utterly to the point about discipleship as personal response to the crucified risen Jesus. Reading him I realise how easy it has been to lose that edge of fitness and stamina, to relax that alertness and readiness for self expenditure required of cross carrying Christians. If I'd found myself on Manchester United's training field, the physical demands of keeping up with the pace might be considered the equivalent of hearing that remarkable voice of a young German pastor lay out the demands of discipleship and the costliness of responding to the grace of God in Christ. The right book, read in the right place, at the right time......

The leisurely pursuit of learning and divinity

This week Monday to Friday is one of those gift weeks - when work is hard to discern amongst the pleasure. It is however a reading and writing week - but at St Deiniol's library in Hawarden, near Chester. I'm going with a good friend and colleague so the week includes conversation, fellowship, mutual enthusiasm for 'divine learning' (the purpose behind St Deiniol's endowment) and the hope of a pub where we can watch the Uefa Cup Final.

Blogging is on hold for the week. Maybe next week I'll be able to post some of the theological and intellectual proceeds of a week's work - then again, the pressure to produce is a market concept that has limited usefulness in the life of scholarship. There are times when what is most needed is replenishment rather than productivity. I've a couple of big books lined up - but in a library of over 200,000 items, there may be tempting alternatives. I've several preaching occasions I need to prepare for including the English speaking Welsh Baptist Union Assembly and ordinations of finishing students. To preach at the beginning of a ministry is one of those key moments in theological education as vocation, when all the things that matter most are to the fore.

Time to pack the books, paper and pencils - oh and the laptop.