Living Wittily

The Weekly Faithfulness that Gives Soul to the Furniture and Life to the Stones.

I am a Wesleyan kind of Baptist. Ever since as a never been in church before teenager I heard a congregation singing O for a Thousand Tongues to sing my great redeemer's praise, descant and all, I have loved and inhabited Wesleyan spirituality. "And Can it Be" is a hymn of distilled evangelicalism, theologically daring (emptied Himself of all but love..."), ringing with awe struck gratitude (my chains fell off, my heart was free..), confessionally alert to sin (Died he fore me, who caused his pain...) and scintillating with mystery and adoring wonder (in vain the first-born seraph tries, to sound the depths of love divine.).

I've studied Wesleyan hymnology for over 30 years, and I still sing some of those hymns as if for the first time their poetry and theology and exuberance and heartfelt authenticity was one urgent invitation to enter the holy place where God in Christ meets the wondering soul. Likewise I've read and reflected long on the work and lives of John and Charles Wesley, tried to get inside not only their theology but the experiences out of which it was forged, and the traditions that supply the energy sources and raw materials for such masterpieces of Christian theology in which words and worship deal with hearts both broken and healed at that place the Wesleys preached and prayed and sang about - the throne of grace. That word grace, was for both the Wesley's nearly but not quite synonymous with love. Yes grace is love, but a particular kind of love, acted and enacted in creation as the self-articulation of that eternal exchange of love within the life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I am therefore deeply and repeatedly saddened that the originating sources of Methodism seem to have been silted up and no longer flow so freely in the channels of chapels and worshipping communities, and no longer overflow in the same ways into the communities of villages, towns and cities. Of course not only Mathodism; Baptist, Congregationalist, and other free church traditions are having to reflect with serious intent on their past, and on their uncertain future. So when I come across a small Wesleyan Chapel, it becomes a place of pilgrimage, when standing inside touching the pews, or touching the stone outside, I try to imagine the people whose special place this is, and whose worship and weekly faithfulness gave soul and life to the furniture, the stones, and the people, those living stones being built into a temple fit for God.

The chapel pictured above is in Littlebeck, a few miles out of Whitby. Most of the services are now taken by the small continuing congregation. The back hall is now the home of a Men's Shed, where several men work away at the stuff that is important - conversation, friendship, making and repairing, trying through the gifts of time, words, energy and care, to create a safe place for the lonely, a welcoming place for the stranger, and a local place where friendship can be presupposed.

In one sense this isn't what Wesley had in mind when he organised local Methodists into societies. But in an age of church decline, of ageing demographics across the denominations, and changing habits of social life, it may be that such small gatherings will be leaven, salt, light. And if they don't ignite the spiritual exuberance of a previous age, perhaps they will nevertheless provide a place where that same love of God is embodied, shared and lived, in the quiet faithfulness that is friendship, and in the enduring disciplines of a faith which began in the life of a carpenter.     

Let's Get Back to the Simple Things - and the Simple Gospel

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, Smudge are simple - food, cuddles, warmth, and the door opened to let her in/out/in/out ad nauseam; ordering yet another book online 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!

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.

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, pastor and 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.

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....' These remarkable people, 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....'

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.

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.

"Eucharist and Pentecost." Some Context and Explanation

The idea for this tapestry came from I’m not sure where. But I do remember imagining a chalice touched with the fire of the Holy Spirit, and wondering what that might look like. From there I worked at the shape and colour of the chalice and decided it should be large, generous, dominating the scene, worked in small half cross stitch, but qualified and enriched by other images, particularly fire and another appropriate symbol of the Spirt. I considered olives for their oil, used in anointing, and one of the biblical emblems of the Spirit. The dove, however, was obvious, and its connection with Jesus’ baptism, and with the creation story, confirmed its place above the chalice.

I also considered grapes, signifying the wine of the Eucharist but decided to make the wine dominant within the chalice, and close to a small portrayal of the cross. Thus the coming of the spirit in flames, the wine of the new covenant, the cross as the place of reconciliation, and all this set in a field of wheat with flowers, signifying both the bread of the Eucharist and the beauty of creation.

The flames were worked entirely at random with the colours chosen as I went along. The colours were deliberately strong and much more diverse than red and yellow flames. There seemed no reason that the flames at Pentecost should be limited to human perceptions, so the colours express the diversity of creation, the multiplicity of the work of the Spirit and the infinite possibilities of the creative, purposive and redemptive work of God.

The dove is white, a deliberate attempt at both emphasis and differentiation. The contrast between the wild power of the top half, and the much more ordered fruitfulness of the harvest field in the bottom half is an intended effect, though it was not what I first intended. It was trying to solve the problem of bread and wine that pushed me towards wheat and then my early years in the country and corn fields spangled with flowers suggested small, bright and understated beauty in the midst of the Eucharistic grain.

The borders have become virtually a signature element in my tapestries. The allusion to the rainbow does not follow the colour spectrum but makes visible diversity and harmony, difference and complementarity. The inner gold is both light and the life sustaining fruit of sunlight, grain, and bread; the single red line around the border is evocative of the wine of the Eucharist, and the redeeming love that surrounds the whole of Creation.  

The entire work is an experiment in theology, a prolonged meditation on two theological realities which give definition and imagination to Christian living – the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist. I am expecting that this tapestry will mean more to me than to most others who might look at it – not only because I did it and therefore have much already invested in it; but because I am genuinely curious about the relationship between what we do at Holy Communion, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit who in Johannine theology, takes of the things of Christ and makes them known to us. 

Results Based Obedience or Trust Based Obedience?

Much of my discretionary time nowadays is spent doing the stuff I enjoy, but in busier years had to ration or even put off till work commitments reduced.  So I am now often and happily to be found reading big books, or at least using and studying chunks thereof. Not always theology or biblical studies, but I do have a known weakness for biblical criticism, exegetical commentaries and much else that opens up the biblical world so that we can begin to make connections between ancient text and life as we have to live it today.

So this afternoon I spent time reading in a commentary - and in the garden with the sun so hot it felt like I was maybe even in Macedonia, where Paul around AD 50 founded a few small communities of Christian believers. F F Bruce's Commentary on Thessalonians is packed with lucid commonsense and careful historical judgement, and while 30 years old, still holds its own alongside more recent commentaries. I have and am using half a dozen commentaries on Thessalonians, each of them different, and sure, with some overlap. But there is a tone of voice, a demeanor and intellectual disposition in F F Bruce that those of us who have read him for decades recognise and appreciate for what its is, using the old phrase "believing criticism".

One example - all the commentators dig around the historical context, social background, varying accounts of life in a Greco-Roman city, and try to make sense of the text of Paul's letters, building on all this information, historical reconstruction, and at times historical surmise. But in a very fine paragraph F F Bruce allows that careful historical attention to detail to illuminate the mind and inner reaction of Paul to the ups and downs of those few days in Thessalonica. Having won converts, he was set up and chased out of town as an enemy of Caesar, a subversive presence. The Thessalonian letters were written months later because Paul was prvented from coming back - here is Bruce's paragraph about that:

He had been virtually expelled as a troublemaker from one Macedonian city after another...In each Macedonian city they visited they had established a community of believers. But the missionaries had been  forced to leave these young converts abruptly, quite inadequately equipped with the instruction and encouragement they would need to enable them to stand firm in the face of determined opposition. Would their immature faith prove equal to the challenge? It did, outstandingly so, but this could not have been foreseen. The first gospel campaign in Macedonia in the light of the sequel, can be recognised as an illustrious success, but at the time when Paul was compelled to leave the province it must have been felt as a heartbreaking failure.

And there it is. Bruce the exegete of the text, with the same restrained thoughtfulness, exegetes the emotion and motivation of Paul the missionary. That is the kind of paragraph out of which sermons are legitimately born. Thus. At the times of apparent failure and rejection in living and sharing the gospel of Jesus, other things are happening that won't be evident till later, further down the road. And no, it doesn't always turn out that way - sometimes it goes on feeling we wasted our time, or nothing happened. But often it does, and what is needed by us is not results based obedience, as if numbers and visible success was our right; no what is needed is trust based obedience, and a hopefulness in God and in the work God does when we are not around!

Why Karl Barth is Both Annoying and Indispensable as Theological Reading

This is why I still read Karl Barth. He can be tediously wordy, annoyingly dogmatic, painstakingly thorough, unfairly selective, unabashed by fair criticism and relentlessly sure of his own rightness - at least as I read him. But he can also be theologically alight and therefore a soul-igniting voice; he penetrates into the darkness of human tragedy and the divine tragedy that is the story of redemption; he presupposes an epistemology which is both foundation and centre of all reality, Jesus Christ; and he insists against all other claims, that Christ is the first and last Word, the eternal Word, of Love in its Triune majesty revealed in the Word become flesh, proclaimed on the Cross, vindicated in resurrection.

So here he is near the end of his life, summing up his long life labour, still incomplete and never to be completed, The Church Dogmatics.  

"'The last word which I have to say as a theologian and also as a politician is not a term like 'grace',             but a name, 'Jesus Christ'. He is grace, and he is the last, beyond the world and the church and even theology ...What I have been concerned to do in my long life has been increasingly to emphasize this name and to say:   There is no salvation in any other name than this. For grace, too, is there. There, too, is the impulse to work, to struggle, and also the impulse towards fellowship, towards human solidarity. Everything that I have tested in my life, in weakness and in foolishness, is there. But it is there'."

-- Eberhard Busch, *Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts*, 496.

Five Favourite Photos of a God Made World (2)

On a frosty morning, with snow on the branches, I walked across the road to a tree, with snow on the branches, and a full moon waning but still brightly visible. I took this photo, deliberately lining up tree, twig and moon, to create a soft light globe, hanging over a still sleeping world.

The moon as our night light, a sign of the comforting presence of another who keeps the darkness at bay; or at least so we believed in childhood. The moon as the lesser light which compensates for those times in the rhythm of days and seasons when the sun is hidden and we are otherwise in darkness. The moon as reminder that, as Isaiah said, in the coming day of redemption "the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun." (Is 30.26)

None of which occurred to me at around 6.am in the freezing cold - I simply wanted a photo. But now the image is linked in my mind with a hopefulness and joy at the sheer serendipity, the accidentalness (is that a word - if not can I patent it?), the glimpsed surprise of that small circle of light against a lightening sky.

Mary Oliver has some lovely lines about embracing the gift that each new day brings.

“And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful,

calls to each of us to make a new and serious response.

That's the big question,

the one the world throws at you every morning. " 

Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”

Mary Oliver.

 

Eye in the Sky. Superb Film Making and a Seminar on Bread, Bombs and Collateral Damage

Last night we had booked tickets to see "Eye in the Sky", with Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, and a very good supporting cast. Here is the blurb on the cinema website:

For years, Operation Cobra has been tracking the movements of a radicalised British woman who joined the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabab in Kenya. Now she's finally in their sights. In a London Cabinet Office briefing room, officials join Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) to remotely observe her capture. But everything changes when commanding officer Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) learns that an imminent suicide bombing is being planned in the target's house. The 'capture' mission promptly becomes a 'kill' one. But then a US drone pilot (Aaron Paul) spots a little girl in the kill zone. Is she acceptable collateral damage? Helen Mirren is on mesmerising form in Rendition director Gavin Hood's tense and highly relevant drama exploring the ethics of remote warfare. It also features the late Alan Rickman's final live-action screen performance.

This film is a hard examination in the ethics of modern weaponry, the lethal necessities of anti-terrorist operations, the intelligence capacities of advanced technological surveillance techniques, and the tensions between political vacillation and military decision making. I would say this is essential viewing for all of us who have ever been outraged or pleased at reports of drone strikes, confirmed terrorist eliminations, and regrettable collateral damage. This is the story of planned indiscriminate death by terrorists, and planned pre-emptive death on the small scale to avoid that greater catastrophe. Except we spend half an hour getting to know and care for the young girl, playing in her yard, selling her mother's home baked bread, and secretly learning maths to have a better chance of life and freedom. The result is a jolting collision of emotions, for the audience and for the key players in the film. 

I was gripped for the entire 102 minutes. I cared for this young girl and her family; I cared for the two young drone pilots, remotely observing on screens a child playing with a hula hoop and selling bread, and I cared that within the same compound, unknown to her family, two young radicalised men were being loaded with suicide vests. And I knew that one way or another people were about to die. But who? By whose hand? For what purpose? In what numbers?

The film is a powerful exploration of the moral wilderness that is modern hi-tech warfare, with no landmarks of normativity, no oases of certainty, no places to hide from the choices by which people live or die. The film brilliantly exposed the dilemmas facing the Western democracies, confronted by enemies who wish their destruction as an ideological and religiously driven goal funded by their own deaths. The contrast of mindset and worldview between Islamic extremism and Western liberalism creates in this film unbearable tensions between moral imperatives, political aims and risks, and military options; you san feel, smell and see those tensions for every one of the key characters in the briefing room, the drone control centre, and the operations centre. We are allowed to observe and overhear the arguments for a strike, the counter arguments for aborting the mission, the search for authorisation from Attorney General, to Foreign secretary, to Prime Minister, US Secretary of State, and all along the chain the conflicted interests of politicians watching their own backs, as elected representatives have to do.

At the heart of the film, a child. The personalising of the mathematics of collateral damage is brilliantly achieved. A child dancing with a hula hoop in a summer dress, goes to sell bread dressed as a muslim woman under shariah law. A child selling bread and happily playing, within metres of a high grade terrorist cell plotting imminent mass murder. The search for compromise by the politicians, the insistence of the military for an immediate authorisation to strike with hellfire missiles, the surveillance by two young American drone pilots, showing huge amounts of high explosives being fitted with religious reverence around the bodies of two other young people, leaves the viewer no alternative but to join the debate, and hear the cost and consequences of action, or inaction.

At a key moment the horrible realities of propaganda and political fallout are clarified. Let the suicide bombers go and do their murderous worst, and world reaction will demonise Al-Shabab and make the prosecution of war against them more justified. Eliminate the terrotist cell while knowingly killing an innocent child and her family, and world reaction will condemn an act which is no different from, and no better than, those they oppose. What this film does is haul us into the ops centre of anti-terrorist intelligence, denying the luxury of ignorance or not wanting to know. The nature of warfare, the military weaponry options, the nature and methods and aims of the often unknown and concealed enemy, the catastrophic loss of life and the extent of human suffering every time a terrorist offensive is successful, the near impotence of military strategy to deal with an enemy whose own death triggers their weapons, all create a nightmare world of dangerous ambiguity, moral confusion and political wariness. A virtual reality world of remote warfare, drones, satellites, advanced surveillance, has changed forever the rules of military engagement.

I came out of the dark cinema, having been glued to a screen showing darkened rooms, computer screens showing images of a world where high tech surveillance was juxtaposed with bread making and a hula hoop, and in which a child with a hoped for good future played within yards of two young men whose future was mortgaged to their radicalised goal of self-immolation for purposes of mass death in the name of their god. And I came out into sunshine and the sound of the waves of the North Sea a hundred yards away. And I ask, which world is real - the sunlit sea front, or the darkened room with its computerised intelligence, defence and counter terrorist hardware, or the oil lit hut in Somalia where terrorism is prayed over and planned within a liturgy of hate and lethasl intent, or the back yard where a child plays in the sunlight from the same sun? And in all of this, where does the hula hoop and the bread fit in, and who makes the choice whether the child with a hoped for future will be allowed to live into that future, or become one more cipher in the mathematics of collateral damage estimates?

 

Five Favourite Photos of a God-Made World

The first time I went to St Cyrus beach was 1978, with a young family, and memories of several very hot days spent on a couple of miles of sand and freeezing water even in June. Some years later I was unpopular because I didn't want to go to the beach - Ian Botham was in the middle of that innings in 1981 149 not out and when he took 5 for 1, on the way to winning the Ashes. 

Ever since, when we could, we have found time to go walk the beach, or the cliff top for the view towards Montrose, or north towards Johnshaven. The other day, with a strong offshore wind I revisited a favourite spot, looking down on the old fishing cottages and smoke house.

The steel grey skies, darkening the sea further to a deep and variable battleship grey, contrasted with white waves making shore. And sitting back from the menace and power of the sea, two human dwellings.

The daffodils on the edge are almost past, transient colour which, on St Cyrus is eclipsed anyway with cliff faces glowing with gorse. Every since my first bird book, a Ladybird book, I've looked at gorse as the home of the goldfinch, linnet and yellow-hammer. I still look, though all three of those hedgerow birds are drastically reduced in numbers and distribution. The day this photo was taken all sensible birds were sheltering.