Living Wittily

Giving Thanks for the Life of Someone Who Made Friendship Her Modus Operandi.

Today I'll be conducting the Thanksgiving Service for a special friend. We met forty years ago and I was her minister for some years, and have been informal minister ever since.

It's always difficult to reduce the rich complexity and complex beauty of a life to words, however well chosen. My friend was neither forward nor outspoken about her faith. Her ways were gentle, patient, generous, practical and in all her dealings with others, compassion and understanding were default responses.

She kept two well worn and often read books by her bedside, one of which was The Prayers of Peter Marshall, the C of S Minister from Coatbridge, who went to the US and became chaplain to the senate.

One of his prayers echoes her favourite hymn which we won't be able to sing, but which will be played at the service. Here is the prayer, followed by the hymn. There is much to be said for a spirituality that refuses to make faith a means of self-assertion, and instead enables the person to listen, understand, come alongside, and share the journey as companion. When it comes to quietly spoken, and sometimes unspoken support of other people, my friend was a gifted natural.

“In the name of Jesus Christ, who was never in a hurry, we pray, O God, that thou wilt slow us down, for we know that we live too fast. With all of eternity before us, make us take time to live, time to get acquainted with thee, time to enjoy thy blessings, and time to know each other. Amen”

 

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

Sometimes Change Cannot be Micro-Managed, It Has to Be Lived Through from a Secure Centre.

John 15.5   “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”

The older translation was “Abide in me.” Like when we ask, “Where do you bide?” That lovely Scots word is about being at home, the familiar place where we do our living, where we belong. That’s what Jesus means. We are at home in Jesus, belong with him, like a branch that’s part of the vine tree, nourished, fruitful, exactly where we should be.

So much has changed, rapidly, radically and frighteningly, in these past four months. It is part of our humanity that we are social beings, but we are forcibly separated from others for our own and their safety. What we have come to rely on and assume as our way of life has been suddnely and disturbingly upended. Routines and relationships, careers and family, holidays and parties, conversations and crowded gatherings, all disrupted.

So what remains? We have had to learn with shocking speed, nothing stays the same when a pandemic strikes. Our way of life has changed, and will have to change going into the future. Change in itself is a good thing, a sign of growth and development, new ideas and ways of doing things. But managed and planned change is one thing; rapid and enforced change is something else, and comes at a cost.

Jesus knew that the disciples were facing the catastrophe of losing him. The crucifixion and death of Jesus would come as a shock from which the disciples might not recover. So he made a promise. He would come to them. He made another promise, the Spirit of counsel and comfort would come and be with them. Then he made a third promise, “Whoever remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit.”

And there it is. The still point in a whirling world. “Abide in me and I in you.” Whatever else changes the love of God in Christ remains, as a constant in a changing world. Whatever else passes and becomes history, the contemporary Christ stays with us, and within us. We are at home in Christ, and he makes His home in us; we live, yet not us, but “Christ lives in us and the life we now live we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for our sins.”

Reflection: John Wesley asked God, “Lord let me not live to be useless.” Whatever these next weeks and months hold, Christ dares us to be open to the presence of the living Lord, and invites us to abide in him and him in us. Our usefulness, and fruitfulness in the service of Christ requires that stable relationship of trusting love. Even if everything else around us is perplexing and uncertain, we are in the right place, near to the heart of God, whose love abides, and in whose love we abide.   

Morning has Broken; The Coincidences of Creative Success

Morning has broken
Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
Fresh from the Word!

Sweet the rain’s new fall
Sunlit from Heaven,
Like the first dewfall
On the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness
Where his feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight,
Mine is the morning,
Born of the one light
Eden saw play.
Praise with elation,
Praise every morning,
God’s re-creation
Of the new day!

I'm old enough to remember Cat Stevens singing 'Morning has broken' on TOTP. The lyrics were written by the children's author and poet Eleanor Farjeon, commissioned specifically for children and to match the tune 'Bunessan'. The subsequent history of the hymn is now inextricably linked to the name Cat Stevens (now Yusuf), but the authorship of the words is less well known and is often conflated with the name of the singer.

I thought of this hymn the other day while walking in the Bin Forest up at Huntly. It had been raining heavily, and the trees were dripping with run off water. The smells were pungent, amongst them wet wood, grass in full flower, the aroma of pine branches and new cones, and that leafy green smell that's hard to describe but seems to depend on rain and its aftermath of sunlight. 

I think back to the countless times I've heard this song, in church worship, at weddings and funerals, on radio as song and in orchestrated versions where on hearing the tune 'Bunessan' the mind defaults to Farjeon's lyrics, and for me, to Cat Stevens, singing accompanied by his acoustic guitar and Rick Wakeman's brilliant piano accompaniment and instrumental interludes.

And so a classic is born from the coincidence of a traditional Gaelic tune named after a village on Mull, a hymn written by a children's poet in the 1920's, a singer with an evocative and remarkably clear voice, and an emerging rock instrumentalist whose keyboard accompaniment make the hymn instantly recognisable in its first couple of bars.  

What is less obvious is the rounded theology of creation that is woven into the simple words. There are echoes of the Psalms in every verse. It is a hymn of praise inviting the singer to praise, and providing the words and images to do so. The rain, dewfall, bird song, sunrise, and grass are images straight from the great Psalms of creation praise, but transposed  to words simple enough for children, and profound in the imaginative stretch required to transport the mind to the Genesis creation narratives.

Words so familiar can become divorced from their literary precursors: 'Where his feet pass', God's recreation of the new day', and especially the last lines of the first stanza, "Praise for them springing, fresh from the Word."; these provide the essential biblical substructure of a hymn that is joyfully exuberant at the sheer extravagance of God's creative artistry, as everything is "sprung in completeness, where his feet pass." And God saw that it was good, very good. 

Something of that was felt and smelt in a wet forest, walking with Sheila and Andrew, and remembering Aileen, who loved this song, which we sang at her funeral thanksgiving service. The playfulness of Eden, God's work of creative completion, and God's recreation of each new day - these are hopeful, though at times poignant convictions which I hold to, and pray that each day they will spring fresh from the Word. 

Photographs for a Time of Pandemic: 10 Behold I Make All Things New

I had an email from someone yesterday. It was one of those affirming, appreciative, encouraging surprises in the inbox, intended to make you feel better, more hopeful, and know you are valued. In this case the person assured me of their prayers, and they sent a biblical text they thought was 'just meant' for me. 

The text was "Behold I make all things new...", and is from Revelation 21.5. It comes at the end of the most spectacular imaginative writing in the entire New Testament. Like much in that book, this text is freighted with meanings from the Old Testament, especially Isaiah 43.18-19:

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
   See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland."

Throughout my life as a Christian, over 50 years now, I have turned to the later chapters of Isaiah at times when hope was hard to come by and life seemed to be asking more than can be given. Isaiah couldn't be further removed from pop psychology, life and self-management, and the always look on the bright side way of coping.

So when Isaiah says God says, "Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing", this is neither command nor permission to relinquish our sorrows, erase sad memories, or try to disguise the wounds. God promises to make a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The new thing doesn't obliterate the past, it redeems it, transforms it, turns aridity to fruitfulness, irrigates the places where nothing has grown for years. Wilderness is land, waste places have potential, all they need is water, and that's what God promises.

In that sense Isaiah was sending to the exiles a surprise in the inbox. A promise that all that seems wasted can be gathered up again into a future fruitfulness. The tears will remain shed, and more will come; the wounds will take a long time healing, and will leave scars. But out of all the suffering God brings new possibilities, there can be streams in the wasteland, and a way through what seems like endless and life-denying desert. 

That email yesterday came at the end of a long day. It included an early morning cycle run, a walk to the local farmer's market just re-opened after 4 months, and later a 3 hour forest walk enjoying the peace and invitation of a forest still dripping after earlier rain. Like everyone else I have found these past months difficult, tricky to navigate, at times seemingly unending in the slow blurring of days and timelines, and at times lonely when missing all those in whose lives we are invested, and whose friendship is an investment in us. So a walk in a forest gives time to think, to pray, to look and see, to listen to outer sounds and inner thoughts. 

Walking behind the other two for a while, looking at leaves dripping water, listening to ditches gurgling, examining flowers closely, there was a complete sense of Cat Stevens! "Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, sprung in completeness, where his feet passed."

We came back, had a replenishing meal, watched an old film, and I came up to the study, to find a text sent earlier that day, "Behold I make all things new.", and the inexplicable hunch, that such a text "was meant". 

I started this series "Photos in a Time of Pandemic", as a way of reflecting on photos I had taken in the first two months of lock down. Now I've caught up with myself, and where events now are. Whatever these next months bring, it is impossible for us to forget the impact of a pandemic on our world, our country and our own small world of family, friends, church, work and all that we used to call normal. I have no idea what a text that says, "Behold I make all things new" will mean for all of us. But like so much in the life of faith, I don't need to know what will be what. More important to know that God will be there as well as here, then as well as now. And whatever blessing God brings, it will come as streams in the wasteland - that is, our past experience is not erased, it becomes a source of fruitfulness; and it will come as a way in the wilderness - that is, our future experience will be a way forward, following the one who is going before, and who makes all things new. 

At least that is my attempt at trying to make some sense, and some faithful response to a promise that comes out of the blue, "Behold I make all things new." Now and again, there is a surprise in the inbox, a reminder from God knows where, that we are part of something vaster than we know, and pulled into purposes that spring, as we will eventually see, from the eternal Yes of God to his whole creation. "Behold I make all things new."    

Wendell Berry, Sabbath Poems 4. The Revolutionary Act of Silence.

This is a much more prophetically edged poem than many in the Sabbath collection. The poet is compelled to interrogate his own values and motives as a poet, as a citizen, and as a human being capable of moral discernment and ethical protest. 

One of the reasons I admire and return to Wendell Berry's writing is precisely that unerring instinct for naming what is going wrong in a culture, and pointing to legitimate response. This poem was written the year the Allied coalition invaded Iraq in the so called "War on Terror". The justifications offered for those long years of conflict,with countless civilian casualties and the destabilisation of several nation states in a volatile region, have proven to be less than valid; the conflict itself still unsettled, and a road map to peace still uncharted.  

Berry went to the heart of the matter; the eclipse of truth by political, economic and military powers that hijack words and monopolise media. And his response was to envision a world where however rich, powerful and entitled those powers might feel themselves to be, protest was then, and is now, a moral and spiritual imperative. 

So Wendell Berry, one of our finest poets and novelists wrote a Sabbath poem about the power of silence. Not passive silence, but a deliberate self-imposed absence of words as a symbol of freedom. Against those who would restrict the freedom of speech of writers and musicians and painters, Berry claims on behalf of a true patriotism the freedom of silence; by which he means the refusal of the poet to allow his words, the refusal of the musician to allow their songs and music, the refusal of artists to allow their painting, to be enjoyed and co-opted by those who have hijacked the deepest freedoms of the human spirit. 

Berry is aware that the high arts have profound formative power for the nation, the land and the people. So they must never be prostituted in the interests of political manipulation and propaganda. Patriotic duty sometimes requires persons and a people to resist, protest, say no to what we are being told is our patriotic duty. The core values of that duty can never be dictated by a party, a political leader, or a movement.

The poet's point has wider application than the time and place this poem was written. Only a few days ago, The Rolling Stones went to Court to prevent their music being used at Trump Rallies. A rock group is refusing to allow their music to be co-opted for other ends, because they know the deep resonances, motivational and associational power of music, lyrics and concerted focus.   

The freedom of silence is a revolutionary act of non-alignment and non-compliance with the powers that be. The refusal of the poet to validate the practice of word devaluation; the refusal of musicians to have their music exploited in the interests of the powerful; the refusal of artists to allow image to be used as a way of distorting meaning and manipulating reason, emotion and conscience. These are revolutionary acts that are statements of freedom.

            Sabbath Poem VII 2003

When they cannot speak freely in defiance

of wealth self-elected to righteousness,

let the arts of pleasure and beauty cease.

Let every poet and singer of joy be dumb.

When those in power by owning all the words

have made them mean nothing, let silence

speak for us. When freedom’s light goes out, let colour

drain from all paintings into gray puddles

One the museum floor. When every ear awaits only

The knock on the door in the dark midnight,

Let all the orchestras sound just one long note of woe

……..

All that patriotism requires, and all that it can be,

is eagerness to maintain intact and incorrupt

the founding principles of the nation, and to preserve

undiminished the land and the people. If national conduct

forsakes these aims, it is one’s patriotic duty

to say so and oppose. What else have we to live for?

One of My First Solo Bookshop Crawls in Edinburgh, 1976.

It was raining, I remember that.

It was in Edinburgh, in 1976, and I was standing beside Greyfriars Bobby getting soaked by persistent drizzle.

I was waiting to cross the road to the small Christian book shop on Forrest Road.

It was one of my early solo book shop crawl expeditions to Edinburgh, and I knew what I was after.

I had been to James Thin's but they didn't have the blessed book.

Maybe the recently opened Christian Book Shop on Forrest Road would have it, they said.

Walked past the National Museum of Scotland heading for Forrest Road. 

Inside the shop I spoke to the proprietor and asked for the newly published book.

Ah well, he wisnae sure about the book, whether it was "sound" or not.

Read it with discretion he warned!

"Aye right", I said, inwardly.   

I bought it, and over the next week read it from cover to cover.

Forty odd years later I still have that book, and recall the pleasure of its weight in my brief case. 

It was Leslie Allen's commentary on several minor prophets, amongst them Jonah.

To this day Allen's volume remains on my shelves as a favoured option on those prophets.

In these days of easy access online to your door delivery somethings has been lost; the chase, the handling and perusing and the smell and the heft of a book you know you're going to buy - and the bookseller, someone who has opinions on what you buy, and is not backward about coming forward with them!