I left Glasgow Airport at 7.00 am having been up since 5.am! I'm now in Manchester waiting for a taxi to take me to the airport, where I'll wait for a flight to take me to Glasgow, where I'll wait in the car park for Honda Assist to come and fix a punctured front tyre. Then I'll wait till it's fixed and decide what to do about dinner, and swither (Scots for "cannae make up my mind yet") whether or not to make it a longer day still, and head for Aberdeen, .
All this waiting, reminded me of the title of a favourite book. If you know me at all, you'll know that W H Vanstone is one of my theological must haves. Three short slim books give the distilled essence of ministry that was selfless, awkward, traditional, inspiring, focused on divine love and lived out in the most ordinary parish settings. One of his books, The Stature of Waiting is a profound study of passivity, surrender and patient waiting upon circumstance. Vanstone is hard to emulate, hard to follow as an exemplar, I guess he was a one off! Yet even when I can't go with him, or he says things I resist, I know I'm listening to an important voice, and if I disagree I realise I have to have cogent, viable reasons of my own. And sometimes his one liners are simply unanswerable - one of them comes to mind, capturing his traditional commitments in liturgy, his deeply reflective theology, and his sharp observations articulated in sharper comment:
"Sometimes the church is like a swimming pool, where all the noise comes from the shallow end"
No answer to that. At least, not one I'm prepared to offer.
One of my "now I see the world in a different way" books!
Posted by: ruthg | April 15, 2011 at 07:28 AM