Living Wittily

Road Tax, Staff Training, Post offices and butterflies in China

Needed money to pay for my road tax and got it at the autobank which is approached from one side by a ramp with steps at the other. At the bottom of the steps one of our senior worthies was leaning on her walking stick and scowling up at the bank doors:

'Is that place no' open yit son' she asked me.

I tried the automatic doors but no, they wouldn't open. The notice said it opened at 9.45 on Wednesday's following staff training. It was 9.30. I explained to my friend (anyone who calls me son at my age qualifies as an immediately co-opted friend), that the staff were training.

Her reply, 'Whit training dae they need tae open b***** doors.'

Went to the Post Office to get the road tax. After a longish wait in a longish queue, the teller said, 'You could have got this at teller 11 or 12 without waiting. They're dedicated to road tax'.

Doesn't matter I said. Anyway I was only there because I'd left it too late to do it online. At which point the teller told me the more people who do it online, the less come to the Post Offices. That affects the Post Office commission revenue and will eventually lead to further cuts in services, staff and Post Offices.

Then went to my own bank, to find one of its employees standing at the door, locked out, because it was staff training and they were upstairs. It was 9.45 - bank would open at 10.00. Would I hang around for 15 minutes, or just leave it till another time. Blethered a wee while with Jackie (locked out staff member with name on jacket), decided not to wait.

So on my way back up Paisley High Street, a place where deep pondering on the philosophical options of the good life tends not to happen too often, I thought about all this.

Hmmmmmm. So staff training means the bank opens later, and customers have to wait. Now is the training to make them more efficient in dealing with the customers? Is it ok then to inconvenience customers, in order to train staff, to better provide a good service? And then the Post Office thing. If Post Offices are dependent on revenue from road tax, then clearly DVLA and/or Govt save that revenue if I do it online. Which means my convenience prejudices the convenience of all those who depend on a local Post Office and would be affected by cut services and closed Post Offices due to loss of revenue. It's the butterfly that flutters in China that starts off the chain of events felt across the globe.

  So. I've decided. I'll pay my road tax off line, by walking down the High Street, standing in the queue, and handing over the documentation. This will not be convenient, it will probably be raining, I will think of serial rationalisations for saying, oh Hang, just go with the online flow and let your mouse do the walking. But somewhere deep in the secret places of who I want to be, I'll know that I've made a gesture of support for those whose lives can be made more inconvenient by every convenient click on the DVLA website, including mine. Luddite? Possibly. Quixotic? I hope so - there's not enough of it. Futile - naw, just think of the nutterfly in China. (I know the third last word in that sentence is spelt wrong -hit the wrong key- but it seems like a word with a chance of being useful!)

And as for staff training in banks, and consequent later opening for elderly customers wanting to lift this weeks pension, and having to stand in the rain, if there is a last word it should probably go to my pal met earlier, whose response required a series of asterisks to make her language suitable for a genteel blog like this.

'Tis a gift to be simple.......

 

Nothing in life is ever simple! Actually I don't believe that - the laughter of friends is simple; the pancakes, maple syrup and pineapple I've just scoffed was a simple dessert; the needs of our cat, Gizmo are simple - food, cuddles, warmth, and the door opened to let him in/out/in/out ad nauseam; ordering yet another book from the US is far too simple - one click ordering is subversive of all budgets...if your clicking finger offends you, cut it off.....might just about be a contemporary warning; and yes, the Gospel is simple....eh, well, haud oan a meenit, Jim!

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When I say the Gospel is simple I don't mean doesn't need any thought; I don't mean come to Jesus and get all your problems solved, simple; I don't mean following Jesus faithfully today is as simple as saying the sinner's prayer; and I don't mean the Gospel of God's baffling, extravagant, welcoming, forgiving, transforming, heart breaking and heart-mending love can be reduced to a praise song, pure and simple.

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But I do mean that reduced to the bare essentials God's love is most clearly recognised in Jesus Christ; I do mean that no one needs a portfolio of achievements, a cluster of transferable skills, or any of the other image building paraphernalia that fills the usual impressive curriculum vitae, to get an interview with God; and yes, theological educator that I am, I do mean that to know the love of God in Christ that surpasses knowledge is the most important educational goal of our lives, and quite simply, the only qualification that ultimately matters. At which point the Gospel is no longer simply simple - it is simply incomprehensible.

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The wonderfully eccentric people called the Shakers, who were also concentric when it comes to community and God, have a beautiful little song, 'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free....' I'll blog a couple of times in the next week about these remarkable people, who believed everything in life is simply gift. Their furniture is made with loving craft, simple design, and a view to the beauty of usefulness. It expresses the meaning of home, togetherness, the dance of life shared with God. The last communities are now dying out, but their commitment to simple life, community love and worship as the community choreographed in dance and co-ordinated in love, remains deeply, subversively and simply, prophetic. Every now and again I need to hear their quiet defiant advice, 'Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free....'

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A while ago I copied out some words from a Journal article - and I didn't keep the reference for it - but now and again, reading it I'm reminded of how in my life ( and, I suspect, in yours) things take on an 'inordinate complexity'.  Then to 'flee to the Beloved, is to know ourselves loved, is to learn again the simple truth, the Gospel truth - God is love.

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When in doubt and confusion,

call in the scholars

and they will fill your minds

with such inordinate complexity

that you flee to the Beloved

and take refuge in Simplicity

as the only solution. 

Channel 4, Non Justifications and the Emperor's New Clothes

'Living wittily in the tangle of our minds' sometimes means thinking in an uncomplicated way about important events and human happenstance. I think a mother of two boys, killed in a car crash abroad, is an important event, and the most tragically life changing event so far in the life of her two sons. I am uncomplicated enough in my thinking, and in my not always successful attempts to be a compassionate and wise human being, to respect the grief, the privacy and the loss of all involved.

Why should that change when the person killed was Diana Princess of Wales? Channel Four intends to screen previously unseen photographs of the interior of the car, of Diana receiving oxygen in the immediate aftermath, and to broadcast previously inaccessible testimony from photographers. This is wrong, cynical, voyeuristic and deeply exploitative. Which is bad enough. But my uncomplicated take on these things isn't to be taken as stupidity. Does Channel Four think that the following is in any sense a professional or moral justification, or that it comes anywhere near socially responsible Huh?

"there is a genuine public interest in the events that followed the crash...."(Sorry, but where is the distinction between public interest and ghoulsih voyeurism? And if by public interest, is meant the more ethically important issue of serving the public good, what good is it going to do me to see a dying mother struggling for life - or to see the mangled mess inside the car where a human being was fatally injured? PUBLIC INTEREST???).

"We don't think the pictures are intrusive, and we have thought very carefully about the sensitivities of the families involved" (Sorry, but what other car crash victims would also be fair game for widespread broadcast on our TV screens? And thinking very carefully does not necessarily imply that you have concluded very sensitively, wisely, responsibly or even humanely!!!)

"Appropriate action has been taken to avoid any unwarranted intrusion in the privacy of the family."(Appropriate action - like what? And what is warranted intrusion, and who decides? A company already compelled to apologise for its mishandling of racist material expects me to believe it actually cares more about avoiding unwarranted intrusion, than it does about the human tragedy that lies at the centre of this whole tangled mess)

So - the above quotes are Channel Four's "justification". How does one respond to such a litany of inanities? How do we stop semantic gymnasts from offering - non-justifications as if they were convincing, reasoned and cogent points which any sensible, mature adult can swallow with their cornflakes? Maybe by adopting the uncomplicated response of the young boy, whose perception was clear, and who was innocently unaffected by spin and illusion, and who pointed out bluntly that the Emperor had no clothes on. Channel Four's contrived "justification" is the identical scenario - naked hypocrisy patronising the crowd by parading its see through gear!

Picasso, Pentecost and Haiku

Picasso's simple line-drawing, with the biblical allusion of the dove and the olive leaf, I find profoundly moving, and poignant, in a world where violence is often the preferred method of communication. This Pentecost, may the Spirit of peaceful communication enable us to find olive leaves to offer one another.

Picasso, Pentecost and Haiku

Invading Spirit,

Gatecrash our solemnity

With holy fervour.

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The Church that's drinking

Intoxicating Spirit

Never lost for words.

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Rushing mighty wind,

Hurricane force holiness,

Mission impelled church.

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Searing tongues of flame

"Inextinguishable blaze",

Purify our hearts.

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Speak in other tongues,

Of love, of peace, of pardon,

People reconciled.

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Tower of Babel,

Communication breakdown,

New hermeneutic.

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Pentecostal gift,

As given, Giving, Giver,

"The Go-Between God".

Jim Gordon, Pentecost, 2007

Music is feeling, then, not sound

When stopped for speeding Oscar Levant, the American pianist and composer explained, "You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's seventh Symphony and go slow!"

When it was premiered, the critics panned Beethoven's Seventh, one review accusing Beethoven of being as drunk as the music itself when he composed it. I've lost count of the times I've listened to it - and it never lets me down - it always lifts. Wallace Stevens' poem about wistful piano playing says something about the spirituality of music:

Just as my fingers on these keys

make music; so the selfsame sounds

On my spirit make music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound.

Today, driving back from Laura's Teashop at Carmunnock, Classic FM played the whole of that last movement. To my knowledge I didn't speed - but music like that is to me what a double espresso is to some of my pals!! There is a dynamic payload of energy in it that makes Oscar Levant's mitigation plea perfectly plausible. How a deaf composer was able to celebrate and synchronise sound into such joyful, aggressive, in your face vitality I've no idea. Part of the miracle that is Beethoven at his best, I suppose. But for me, Beethoven clinches Wallace Stevens' argument - when music touches deep in our spirits, "music is feeling, then, not sound."

And maybe Beethoven was remembering the critics when he said:

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

Jonathan Edwards - who he?

The name Jonathan Edwards used to be famous and recognisable; he's the New England late puritan revivalist pastor, now widely recognised as the greatest American theologian, and one of the most intellectually gifted philosophers in American history. It's a pity most people who've heard of him tend to know him best, if at all, because of his famous sermon, 'Sinners in the hands of an angry God'. Edwards' theological writings can never be reduced to such caricature - his theological works are a huge mother lode of Australian (well, New England) gold nuggets. I can still remember reading his sermons on Charity and its Fruits, coming to the last sermon, 'Heaven is a world of love'. I know of nothing, nothing, that gathers together such rhetorical and spiritual power in his descriptions of the love of God and the overwhelming mercy that suffuses the whole of reality.

Nowadays the name Jonathan Edwards isn't as straightforward. Someone by the same name is a retired world-class, olympic gold-medal winning triple jumper, who until recently presented Songs of Praise. Put Jonathan Edwards into an Amazon search and you get a mixture of athletic autobiography and puritan theology, motivational self-help and no nonsense mercy and judgement.

And then the past couple of days I was down in Manchester meeting with British Baptist leaders and spent time with Jonathan Edwards (a third one) - Jonathan is General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, a highly experienced pastor and a fine reflective church leader.

The puritan, the athlete, the Baptist.....' The name Jonathan Edwards is to the fore for me again cos I've just started the Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, along with other recent studies of his life and thought. The essays here cover the full range of Edwardsian studies - an essay a day means it'll take a fortnight to read. As you can see, the book cover does him no favours - probably seemed like a good idea to the graphic artist to use a modern 'wooden stylised bust' - doesn't work as a book cover - just makes him look miserable, scary and...well....wooden!

I haven't forgotted my promise to do a couple of posts on Edwards and Moltmann on the Trinity - after Pentecost I'll get round to it.

First - on Sunday I'll post some Pentecostal Haiku!

A Pentecostal Worldview

It is through the agency and power of the same Holy Spirit speaking in us and through us that the Word of God can be and continues to be communicated, as living dynamic Reality to humankind in the proclamation and the teaching of the Church. This holds good in the most difficult circumstances, for it is the coming of the Kingdom of God in Christ and the Lordship of the Holy Spirit on earth that are at stake in the mission of the Church. Just as when Jesus cast out demons by the Spirit (or finger) of God, the Kingdom of God or his sovereign Presence and Power came among people, so when the church proclaims  the victory of Christ over all the forces of evil and darkness, it is God himself  in the Sovereign Presence and Power of his Spirit who is at work bringing redemption and freedom to captive humanity.  (Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, page 63)

Aye, but do we believe all that? Does Pentecost decisively shape my worldview? Not if I'm simply flattened by the avalanche of gloom and manufactured anxiety that passes for ' the news'. Pentecost is the day when the Church believes in miracles again, when all that darkens and diminishes life is swept up into purposes much bigger than sin, and more determined than any number of demons. Whatever else, Pentecost announces Who rules, OK??

McJob and the Oxford English Dictionary

So. Mcdonalds want to rewrite the English language by erasing the word McJob from that responsible guardian of verbal verities, the Oxford English Dictionary. Here's the story from Lawdit, the intellectual property solicitors.

The

UK

arm of McDonald's is planning a campaign to have the dictionary definition of a McJob changed. The Oxford English Dictionary says it is: "An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector."  Lorraine Homer from McDonald's, however, said the firm felt the definition was "out of date and inaccurate".

The fast food chain is planning a public petition to try to get the definition changed. The word McJob was first used in the

US

in the 1980s and was popularised by Douglas Coupland's 1991 book Generation X. It first appeared in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary in March 2001. McDonald's tried to improve the image of its employment opportunities last year with the slogan: "McProspects - over half of our executive team started in our restaurants. Not bad for a McJob."

Now I think it's laudable (a couple of letter changes make the word laughable) that McDonald's are now concerned about fairness, keen for everyone to use accurate descriptive terminology, and aspire to be supportive enablers of their employees' prospects. And I do think if a company has genuinely turned around, and is now espousing and promoting fair trade, fair labour practices reflected in liveable wages as a global and not only locally expedient policy, and works credibly towards not only image change but to evidence a change of ethical substance, then that's to be commended and rewarded.

However - rather than remove the pejorative McJob, Mcdonalds could inspire new words like McFairpay, McFairtrade, McHealthy, McOrganic. If they carry on appealing to the courts, and using their commercial weight, they might generate the even less welcome neologism, McLitigation.

Courageous intervention

I was once told by one of the congregation, after preaching on a particularly astringent passage from the Gospels where Jesus was berating the religious status quo, that I needed to preach like that more often. When I asked 'Preach like what'?, I was told 'Give us a hard kick up the backside'.

I have to confess I was a bit surprised - I suppose it hadn't fully registered that

a) preaching might have had that kind of aim expressed in such unevangelical terminology

b) there are those who expect to come to church and be the regular recipients of that kind of 'team talk'!

But at the same time I recognise the truth of Thomas Merton's comment that the church suffers from 'chronic niceness', a capacity to be accommodating and non-confrontational, and that in so doing the church is being unfaithful, avoiding the pain and rejection of being both critic of the status quo and exemplar of another way.

Which brings me to a passage from my A year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer daily readings book. Some of Bonhoeffer's writing is an unmistakable example of 'a hard kick up the backside' for the Church. The words below were written at a time when the church's silent acquiescence let evil go unchallenged.

The church confesses itself guilty of violating all the Ten Commandments. It confesses thereby its apostasy from Christ. It has not so borne witness to the truth of God in a way that leads all inquiry and science to recognise its origin in this truth. It has not so proclaimed the righteousness of God that all human justice must see there its own source and essence. It has not been able to make the loving care of God so credible that all human economic activity would be guided by it in its task. By falling silent the church became guilty from the loss of responsible action in society, courageous intervention, and the readiness to suffer for what is acknowledged as right. It is guilty of the government's falling away from Christ. (Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 140-1)

Still Reading Torrance

Someone defined a good book as one that should be sucked slowly, like a lozenge. Now 'lozenge', ever since I was a wee boy and had to suck cough lozenges on account of chronic bronchitis, brought on it seems by secondary smoking, has always seemed to me to be a grown up word for a sweetie, that while tasting a bit different, would definitely do you good. 

Tom Torrance's The Christian Doctrine of God is a lozenge of a book. I am reading it slowly because it's a grown up book that is doing me good. Here's one of my latest lozenge paragraphs - to be taken slowly and allowed to do good.

...our belief in the Deity of Christ rest,...upon the whole manifestation of 'the Christ event' as soteriologically proclaimed and interpreted in the gospels and epistles. We rely upon the whole coherent evangelical structure of historical divine revelation given in the New Testament scriptures. It is when we indwell it, meditate upon it, tune into it, penetrate inside it and absorb it in ourselves, and find the very foundations of our life and thought changing under the creative and saving impact of Christ, and are saved by Christ and personally reconciled to God in Christ that we believe in him as Lord and God. This does not come about, however, without renouncing ourselves in a repentant rethinking of all that we are and claim to know, that is, without our being crucified with Christ in heart and mind and raised to new life in him. (page 53)