Last night, at the end of a full day, I sat for a while with Dogmatics II.1 and II.2 and browsed – even browsing Barth is intimidating, but also an invitation. Here is the real thing – a mind delving into mystery and kneeling before transcendence. Time spent with this theologian who loved the church revives faith and hopefulness.
Not long ago I finished reading Flannery O'Connor's letters, The Habit of Being. This mildly questioning Catholic, who wrote bizarre stories about the mystery and mastery of grace that invades human lives, had a lot of time for Karl Barth's big thick volumes. Her copy of Evangelical Theology (lectures given on Barth's only visit to the US) was heavily marked. In a letter to her best friend she confided: 'I distrust folks who have ugly things to say about Karl Barth. I like old Barth. He throws the furniture around.'
Not long to Pentecost. Are you allowed to have favourite doctrines - if so, mine's the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I think of the Holy Spirit as the One who throws the furniture around, breaks up the comfortable sofas and routines, rips up the well worn carpets, heaves the telly and the Sky tuner into the corner, even out the window, goes in for some serious Feng Shui to maximise the space in mind and heart and life, for the presence of God to be acknowledged and the worship of God freed from the competing claims of an over cluttered life. As a metaphor of spiritual change, the Holy Spirit doing a makeover of our intellectual and spiritual furniture is worthy of longer consideration – and touches nerves in my own spirit.
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