Living Wittily

Prayer for Getting Out of Bed.

John Baillie, Diary of Private Prayer, Thirtieth Day, Morning.

 

"Creator Spirit, who forever hovers over the lands and the waters of earth, enriching them with forms and colours that no human skill can copy, give me today the mind and heart to rejoice in your creation.

 

Forbid that when all your creatures greet the morning with songs and shouts of joy, I alone should wear a grumpy and sullen face."

Aye. That.

Indeed!

Amen!!

The language and imagery of the Bible

I'm revisiting what I consider to be a great book, and by a remarkable New Testament scholar of a generation ago. What are we doing when we use words? What do we make of words written 2000-3000 years ago, and in Hebrew and Greek? How do we know when we translate such words and language that we have done so accurately and not just literally?

 

Does imagery and irony, simile and metaphor, humour and pathos, social nuance and literary device, rhetoric and narrative, poetry and history, the whole linguistic galaxy of possibilities - how does all of it or even any of it translate into meaning and equivalence when we decide to read once again say, the parable of the prodigal son (or prodigal father). 

 

Or when we simply lift Amos 5.24 and post it on Facebook assuming we 'get it', and as if we own it and possess the full key ring to unlock its meaning? " But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

 

The Language and Imagery of the Bible - it's a deep dive into ancient texts and how to respect them by being humbly receptive to what they say, and careful in our certainties of what we think they mean.

 

By the way, in 1980 it cost £18. That was a lot. Inflation adjusted it would cost £75 today. In fact it's £25 new in pbk, or cheaper of you get a good used one

"The Most Revolutionary People on Earth..."

When I remember, which is most days, I read the selection from A Year With Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I have to say, I've often smiled at the likely response of Pastor Bonhoeffer to the thought his writing would one day be a daily devotional.

Reading Bonhoeffer is an exercise in expansion, deepening and toughening;

1) expansion so that devotional isn't about a theology of my spiritual demands, but a theology of the cross;

2) deepening because for Bonhoeffer devotional is a word redolent of sacrifice, cost, consequence and daily dying; 

3) toughening because everything Bonhoeffer wrote that has enduring value for the Church is a distillation into words of the experience of confronting, subverting, challenging and having to live under the oppressive controls of National Socialism.

The July 24 reading has these words: " The people who love, because they are freed through the truth of God, are the most revolutionary people on earth. They are the ones who upset all values; they are the explosives in human society."

A Diary of Private Prayer and a Wee Green Hymn Book.

John Baillie's prayer for today form his Diary of Private Prayer. You can tell he was a philosophical theologian. Photo from Garlogie woods.

 

"Help me in my unbelief, O God; give me greater patience in my hope; and make me more faithful in my love. In loving let me believe and in believing let me love; and in loving and believing let me hope for a more perfect love and a more unwavering faith; through Jesus Christ my Lord." Amen

 

Baillie had two desks in his study. His work desk, and a small prayer desk with a stool for kneeling. His combination of philosophical theology and personal devotion was real in his life, and at times obvious in his writing. 

 

He was old school Scottish Presbyterian, and none the worse for that. But his slim book of prayers for a month, morning and evening, has been a guide and comfort to tens of =of Christians for almost a century. It was recently updated and revised by Susanna Wright, and that was a wise decision. Language changes, and while I wouldn't want the deep sense of what Baillie wrote to be lost, word usage changes, as do the social signals sent by the language we use.

 

The prayer I have quoted (and which I earlier prayed in my own morning prayers) retains the combination of intellectual sharpness and affective devotion that is Baillie's theological style and spiritual awareness. No book retains its freshness if used every day forevermore. Using Baillie for a few months takes you through the book that number of times.

 

So for a month or two I change it round with other prayer books or books, hymn books or volumes designed for daily reading - two examples, A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the 1960s green covered Baptist Hymn Book.

 

Many of the hymns I know by heart I learned with that hymn book; and many of the hymns I miss most in the contemporary ever changing kaleidoscope of 'praise songs' can be found there. The Bonhoeffer anthology is a serious and careful compilation, not in any sense 'devotional' if by that is meant reassuring comfort zones for the mind. 

 

I don't like the phrase 'quiet time' which seems altogether too regimented as if one suit fits all by a process of changing our natural shape to fit a pattern not designed for our particular body. I don't much like the idea of 'devotions' either; because when I am studying, or photographing, or working tapestry, or cooking lasagne, or cutting the grass, or in conversation with friend or stranger, God is as real in those activities as when self*consciously praying and reading at my desk.

 

But. If everything is prayer then is anything prayer 'as such'. So I try each day, morning and evening, to pray as such. And because it is done as regularly as I can manage, I'm happy to have good company, like John Baillie, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, my wee green hymn book, and various others from the communion of saints, the great cloud of witnesses in the stands cheering their encouragement to all of seeking "to run with perseverance the race that is set before us."   

"Taking Pious Delight in the Works of God."

"Let us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open and manifest in this most beautiful theatre...

 

There is no doubt that the Lord would have us uninterruptedly occupied in this holy meditation, that, while we contemplate in all creatures, as in mirrors, these immense riches of his wisdom, justice, goodness and power, we should not merely run over them cursorily, and so to speak, with a fleeting glance, but we should ponder them at length."

 

John Calvin, Institutes, Book I, xiv, 179-180.

 

Often enough we are guilty of that word 'cursorily'.

Paths, Trees and Praise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a circular walk, along three paths in varying light and each leading into the other,

trees around and above as both filter and canopy,

a pause to watch a young thrush on a fallen tree,

at least till it spotted me staring at it

in that bad-mannered way unique to humans.

 

"Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy, they will sing before the Lord..." (Psalm 96.12)

"Praise with elation, praise every morning": Calvin, Creation and Cat Stevens:

“The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power, but the Church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it; and the nearer the approaches are that God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.”

― John Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, Volume 5.

 

It's Monday morning, and I guess not many beyond certain constricted Christian circles will think a quotation from the severely stern Genevan Reformer John Calvin is a good way of starting the week well. Beyond the church the name of Calvin is more likely to be part of the brand names Calvin Klein, or Calvin and Hobbes when you put it in an Amazon or Google search without a filter.

So far this summer has been a joyous time with my camera when we've been out walking. I happen to subscribe to Calvin's idea of the world as a theatre of God's goodness. But that's probably because I also see something profoundly mysterious in the beauty, resilience, connectedness, adaptability, fragility, diversity, fecundity and recurring source of wonder that is the world in which I live. 

Late in life I look back to those beginnings when for the first 15 years I lived on farms where my dad was in charge of the dairy herd. In the 1950's and 1960's in South West Scotland, at times more than three miles from a village or town, it felt I became part of a landscape, placed in a living environment where I could flourish. A place where the burns were well populated by minnows, trout and 'beardies'; where post war trees were planted and were now young forests filled with all kinds of birds; where fields were made noisy by peewits, curlews, snipe and skylarks; where there were hills that took an hour or two to climb, small deep lochans with water hen, coot, mallard, grebe and sometimes swans; and where I became familiar with a variety of small birds that has long since been reduced to levels of scarcity that now tests the resilience of species to survive.

In any summer we would see swallows, house and sand martins, swifts, greenfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches, yellow-hammer, pied and yellow wagtail, house sparrows, hedge sparrows, starlings in huge numbers, and the sound if not often the sight of the cuckoo. Around the farm in those early years Clydesdale horses, cows of various breeds, several working dogs, and any amount of fields to trek, trees to climb. burns to trace for miles to source, and levels of freedom I've never known since.

I mention all of that as the context and environment in which I grew up. Later, the idea of the world around me as a created masterpiece was never a theological problem issue for me. I've always found the world a source of wondering curiosity, a stimulus to joy understood as contentment, at-homeness, a sense of fitting in and belonging alongside whatever else lives around me.

So Calvin's idea of the world as the theatre of God's goodness resonates with much of who I am and have become. I've little interest in trying to prove the existence of the Creator, or defending a particular theory of creation. The biblical accounts at the beginning of Genesis are both wonderful texts, and texts intended to evoke both wonder and gratitude. For myself, a walk in a wood is an exercise in both wonder and gratitude. With eyes open and ears attuned, in the theatre of God's goodness you can hear the orchestration, see the stage with the curtains pulled back, and watch countless performances of swan and cygnet, yellow-hammer and Ringlet butterfly.

Then there is the garden, where we get the chance to plot and plan our own small theatre, and direct our own home made performances with roses and geraniums, livingstone daisies and clematis, hydrangea and heathers.

Of course you can be closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth. But the 'anywhere else on earth' is the essential background and justification for any garden. Alongside the sense of the natural world as gift, there is the responsibility to care for and cherish this living environment on which our lives depend.

I'm intrigued at the popularity of Eleanor Farejohn's poem, 'Morning has Broken', originally written to celebrate her local village, Alfriston, in East Sussex. Cat Stevens (now Yusuf) turned it into a hymn to both creation and Creator. In the past year or two it has been sung at weddings and funerals in which I've shared - and seemed entirely appropriate at both. I have a feeling the hard to please John Calvin, would have been reasonably satisfied with such a simple Psalm-like piece of praise, and the sheer enjoyment of a world coming awake with life, energy and wonder. Calvin and Cat Stevens - a good Monday combination! 

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 God’s 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 recreation of the new day!

Heaven is a World of Love - The Greatest Puritan Sermon?

"There dwells Christ in both his natures, the human and the divine, sitting on the same throne with the Father. And there dwells the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of divine love, in whom the very essence of God, as it were, flows out, and is breathed forth in love, and by whose immediate influence all holy love is shed abroad in the hearts of all the saints on earth and in heaven.

There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love — this eternal Three in One — is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested, and shines forth, in full glory, in beams of love.

And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!"

How and Old Testament Scholar Answered the Question, "Is there no balm in Gilead?"

At a difficult time in my life, and in the church where I was pastor, I discovered there is a balm in Gilead. By which I mean I found someone who opened up and interpreted with honesty and passion and razor sharp learning, those ancient documents which we call the Old Testament. And he did so in ways that helped me understand and respond to life situations with a faith more honest and less insecure. Walter Brueggemann is someone to whom thousands of pastors and Christ-followers owe the same debt of being helped to find a faith that is resilient, faithful, utterly honest before God, and not spooked by the angularity and strangeness of Old Testament faith and theology.

I know perfectly well that "There is a balm in Gilead" is an African American spiritual, and the balm is applied by the Great Physician, Jesus. The song has a Christological focus, and is amongst the most beautiful works of devotional solace ever sung. If you need convincing, listen to this link with Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqlDbqKaFks   The words come from Jeremiah, and they answer one of the most poignant questions in the whole blessed Bible:"Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? (Jeremiah 8.)

Such questioning sorrow, and struggle of faith, such protest and supplication, seeks a theology robust enough to sustain and inspire the imagination that kindles hope. "Hopeful Imagination" is one of the great gifts Walter Brueggemann unwraps and displays for those who read and wrestle with him. With its companion volume Prophetic Imagination, the theme runs like a platinum thread through Brueggeman's entire opus. Ever since reading those two books, Prophetic Imagination and Hopeful Imagination, I have read, pondered, argued with, been thankful to God for, and been led to pray by the sentences and books of Walter Brueggemann. He is not the only writer to have decisively shaped my faith, but he is uniquely the scholar who has given a thorough education in the persuasive power of a faith without pretence, with open eyes, and with a capacity for hope rooted and grounded in the faithful mercy of God. 

Back to my own first encounters with this then little known Old Testament Professor from some place called Eden Theological Seminary.After being in Baptist ministry for a few years, various life events and more than one quite intractable difficulty began to take their toll on health, spirituality and capacity for good work. As with many of life's problems I tend to try thinking my way through them, around them, seeking both understanding and an inner resolution that, by God's grace and Spirit, makes it possible to live into and then beyond them. The person who has helped me to do that for the past 40 and more years is Walter Brueggemann.

I mention all of this simply because Walter Brueggemann is now 90, and I've passed the biblical entitlement of years myself! So I'm revisiting one or two of those early books, and discovering that Brueggemann's take on God and suffering, 'hesed' and faith as hopeful imagination, Psalms as the faithful believer's playbook and prayer book, - those exegetical stepping stones that help us cross the Jordans that seem uncrossable - they still convince, persuade, reaffirm, and unsettle in a creatively reassuring way. 

The treatment of Genesis 1-3 in his commentary is a rich exposition of what the text is about in telling what God was and is about in creating. This isn't science or history, it is proclamation of God as Creator and creation as that to which God binds himself in a covenant of love, mercy and purposes of goodness leading to life. This is a third read of those 50 pages and I'm not sure I know of a more succinct and theologically sensitive exposition of the doctrine of Creation. These 50 pages would make a brilliant slim paperback with a title like "Creation: A Guide for the Perplexed." 

Oh I know other interpretations of Genesis are available - from Gordon Wenham to Terence Fretheim, from Gerhard von Rad to John Goldingay, and Claus Westermann to Derek Kidner (still a brilliant wee Tyndale commentary). But Brueggemann's Genesis was one of the places I found theological reassurance when life was falling in.

He wrote things like:

[In Genesis 1-3] the news is that God and God's creation are bound in a relation that is assured but at the same time is delicate and precarious." (p.27) 

Or this:

"As a result, our entire world can be received and celebrated as a dimension of God's graceful way with us." (p.27)

And again:

"Creator creates creation. The accent is finally on the subject. And the object must yield, not to force, but to faithful passion. Both the strange resistance of the world and the deep resolve of the creator, persist in the text." (p.20) 

Creation is God's love affair with all that is. The broken world is not left broken. Neither are our hopes and desires for life as God intends. The good news of Genesis is that Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer are words freighted with the eternal purposes and persistent mercies of God, culminating in the great unveiling of that loving purpose when "The Word became flesh and lived amongst us", when "God so loved the world that he gave his only son", and when "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself."

I'm not sure I could have written that paragraph exactly like that if I hadn't enrolled in Walter Brueggemann's distance learning class 40 years ago, and learning to read and ponder the stories that make up the story of "the strange resistance of the world and the deep resolve of the Creator."