Living Wittily

"The path of life leads upwards..." Proverbs 15.24.

The image of the path is deeply resonant with my understanding of what it means to follow Jesus faithfully. There's something about walking boots, a rucksack, food and water for the journey that turns a mountain hike into something as spiritual as it is physical.

Hillwalking is the image of the hymn I chose for my Ordination. And the following of the path that is Christ informs the entire hymn, weaving obedience and trust, perseverance and grace, into a prayer of dedication to the journey, and the One who goes before.

The photos were taken up Bennachie today, from the Mither Tap (1699 feet). Standing between the massive rocks, looking down onto the hill range below what you see is a visual image of "a long obedience in the same direction". Below is the first verse of the hymn, Christ of the Upward Way; it is followed by a favourite poem by the early 17th C poet Giles Fletcher. The first line of the stanza I quote has virtually been a Christian mantra at those times when my life hasn't been straightforward, the path isn't clear, the hill is rocky and the body is tired. But He has led me in right paths, for His name's sake. I've believed even when the evidence wasn't in, that "to trust in God with all my heart" is to find that he directs my paths. I have deep affinities with Benedictine spirituality and love the Rule of Benedict as a moderate, sensible framework for Christian obedience, and that first chapter which begins with the promise "I will run in the paths of your commandments.

No I'm not always consistent in practice; but Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life, and his call to follow faithfully after him remains for me the homing call of the heart, the magnetic North of the soul, and the Gospel of reconciliation in Christ, remains the truth around which the mind finds its orbit, with the prayer, that, in the honesty and humility of a grace not mine, "every thought can be captive to Christ."

Christ of the upward way,my Guide divine,

Where Thou hast set Thy feet, may I place mine;

And move and march wherever Thou hast trod,

Keeping face forward up the hill of God.

Giles Fletcher, from his poem,

The Incarnation

He is a path, if any be misled;

He is a robe, if any naked be;

If any chance to hunger, he is bread;

If any be a bondman, he is free;

If any be but weak, how strong is he!

            To dead men life is he, to sick men health;

            To blind men sight, and to the needy wealth—

A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth.

 

 

Highlights of Last Week 2 - Graduations of Students and Prize Winning Animals

Our students graduated last week, and I attended my last formal graduation on behalf of SBC. I have loved the way my story has woven together with so many other stories. The meta narrative of Christ and Church is itself textured by the stories of those who hear the call of Christ, who hear and heed, and who follow, even to College!

My debt is unpayable to those who encouraged me to study, learn, think, pray, puzzle, proclaim, invest, commit, in other words give myself and my life to the service of Christ and the Gospel and the Church and the World. To have shared in the aspirations and dreams, struggles and successes, pains and gains of so many students has been privilege, pure and simple. Seeing them graduate each year brings such satisfaction, and a humble acknowledgement of God's grace, as these same students are transformed by the renewing of their minds, and will go on in that same grace to prove the perfect will of God. Or so we pray. And playing some small part in that inner reorientation of thought, passion and will is itself a gift more expensive than any of us could afford, and yet one more graced touch of God.

So here are this year's Graduates

 Was going to edit this one, but the two faces at the bottom look so surprised and delighted they add so much to the celebration!!

Oh, and here's Ian, the new Principal, resplendent in St Andrew's Doctoral robes and a bow tie that if it starts revolving fast will propel him upwards :))

Then on Saturday there was the Annual Agricultural Jamboree called the Echt Show. I know - Romeo and Juilet at PACE, prestigous lecture at UWS, Graduations in Coats Memorial - culture and education, but a balanced life needs to get its hands dirty. So, remembering many a visit to the Royal Highland Show at Ingleston, we took in the local display of tractors, cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, baking, falconry, jam making, flower arranging - hey, I know, some of these are only borderline agricultural - anyway, it was a good way to spend a sunny Saturday in rural Aberdeenshire.

 

A wee Hielan coo!

 

 My dad ploughed with one of these!

The wee one dropped in from Narnia.

An Indian Eagle Owl.

Whence and Why This Beauty?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Beside Loch Lomond at nine o'clock in the morning

According to Calvin the created order is "the theatre of God's glory," where the backdrop, the accompanying music and the scene-setting is directed by a Creator who delights in beauty and in the continuing drama of life. That ages old puzzle of aesthetics, whether something is beautiful if there is nobody there to see it and respond to its presence, becomes less of a conundrum for those who believe in a Creator who is both artist and aesthete, who creates, stands back and sees that it is good.

The scene I walked into that morning was far more than a candidate for shortbread tin picture of the year. It was the result of millions of years of practice, the deft patience and pesistence of the artist shaping and forming, building colour, light and texture towards just that precise moment when artistic vision comes to realisation and completion, and the mind of the maker is glimpsed in the transient triumph of coincident forms. At precisely that moment, the Artist-Creator, I believe, smiles.

I know. That's a long semantic way round. Why not just say it's a beautiful photo. Well, actually, the photo itself is pretty ordinary, compared to the origianl which was something quite other than this digitally reductionist record. The breathtaking moments of gazing on a reflected sky, mirrored water, undisturbed silence, and the indefinable sense of presence, my own and that of this place and time, and the rising in the heart of what can only be recognition and gratitude, and the privilege of simply being there, as witness to beauty; these cannot be recorded or captured. They are the gift of the moment; the photo isn't a way of keeping what I saw. It merely bears witness to what cannot be captured, and to that relinquishment which is what gives beauty its value, attraction and hold over the soul.

Those moments of inexplicable beauty, and their power to lift up our heads, are amongst the arguments for the existence of God which I find most persuasive. They are events of annunciation, when God steps into our lives and sets us once again the task of explaining, "Whence, and why this beauty?" 

The Glimpses and Whispers of the Creator Redeemer

Yesterday, how pleased and blessed was I......

In one corrdor at University I met three friends coming the other way, one after another, all hurrying, all going to the same meeting,all tight for time, and all stopped to say hello.

The day before left my glasses on someone else's table and went to retrieve them, and had a surprise catch up with someone I didn't expect to see whose company is always a benediction on the day.

In class we were thinking about monastic spirituality, and about the dispoitions of simplicity, stability, listening and hospitality - and we wondered what Baptist church meetings might be like if these were the four dispositions that governed words, thought and behaviour?

On the way home near Auchterarder, a lapwing doing "summersaults" in early spring. Few birds can do aerial acrobatics with such consummate ease and the sunlight catching the black, white and green shimmer of the plumage...praise in motion.

At the Mearns around Laurencekirk, a sunset in my rearview mirror that was so distractingly beautiful I stopped at the lay-by and watched. The brilliant orange filtering through early evening haze, the hill line awash with warm Turneresque tones, and the blades of the windfarm no longer geometric gray but a golden mobile contradicting the fading of daylight.

All of which lifted the heart and reminded me of this hymn I haven't sung for a hundred years - but would like to!

1. How pleased and blessed was I,
To hear the people cry,
“Come let us seek our God today!”
Yes with a cheerful zeal,
We'll haste to Zion's hill,
And there our vows and honors pay.

2. Zion, thrice happy place,
Adorned with wondrous grace,
And walls of strength embrace thee round!
In thee our tribes appear,
To pray, and praise, and hear
The sacred gospel's joyful sound.

3. There David's greater Son
Has fixed his royal throne;
He sits for grace and judgement there:
He bids the saint be glad,
He makes the sinner sad,
And humble souls rejoice with fear.

4. May peace attend thy gate,
And joy within thee wait,
To bless the soul of ev'ry guest:
The man that seeks thy peace,
And wishes thine increase,
A thousand blessings on him rest!

5. My tongue repeats her vows,
“Peace to this sacred house!
For here my friends and kindred dwell:”
And since my glorious God
Makes thee his blest abode,
My soul shall ever love thee well.

 

I guess the verses are too packed with University Challenge busting allusions to the Bible, and there are too many metaphors that are familiar only to those who once sang hymns like these, and the tune doesn't need all the accoutrements of the now essential praise team, for it to be popular, or even accessible. But that first line, "How pleased and blest was I", the first three lines of verse 4, and the lovely couplet, "Peace to this sacred house! For here my friends and kindred dwell." These are the sentiments of those soaked in Psalm 122, whose prayers are a passionate plagiarism of the psalm-prayers of Israel, and for whom attentiveness to the world around is itself alertness for the glimpses and whispers of the Creator Redeemer. 

The Place Where Prayer is Valid - Loch Lomond as Icon

Five minutes on Saturday morning sitting at the side of Loch Lomond looking at this. What fascinated me was the blueness. Our weather is often grey-coloured, much of the light muted or filtered, making everything seem opaque. That too can be beautiful, dripping with life, what George macleod would call the seeping drizzle of God's gentle grace.

But on a morning like this, you need a blue colour chart to trace the diversity of tones and shades of blue, from denim and sapphire, azure and steel, to Yale and tufts. No, I don't know all these colours by sight; I didn't even know there are 60 indicative categories of blue. But sitting on a large cold rock, with hat, jacket and gloves, just looking, I was aware of the changing of light and colour, sunlight and cloud, calm and ripple; it was like a watercolour being worked in some sky-artist's studio.

One of the thin books I read years ago was The Unattended Moment, by Michael Paffard. It gathered together the experiences of people who had encountered in the world around them, a sense of a presence other than themselves. As a Christian I have no problem with the reality of God's presence in and through the world; nor have I any hesitation in recognising the activity of the Creator who sustains and works in the rhythms and changes of loch and landscape, mountain and forest, - and in the hearts of human beings who attend to such moments of God saying hello.

At such moments, as T S Eliot remarked, we are in a place where prayer is valid. 

The Sermon on the Mount in Scotland!

In Scotland there aren't many lilies of the field - maybe some red poppies growing wild. But if Jesus had preached the Sermon on the Mount near Banchory (The Sermon on Scolty Hill), he'd still have said, 'Not even Solomon in all his purple glory can compete with Scottish heather in August.

The idea that Jesus might speak with a Scottish accent makes for interesting exegesis and fresh translation - when the disciples gave the weans a row for giving Jesus hassle, Jesus said to the disciples, "Gonnae no dae that!"

God's Passion to Multiply Joy

Two sentences from P T Forsyth, This Life and the Next - showing why it's always wise to read him with a pencil to underline and retrace our footsteps to such throwaway theological sense..... the photo is from Scolty Hill looking towards Aberdeen, where Forsyth was born. Wonder if he did his hill-waliking around here?

"We were created by God not out of his poverty and his need of company, but out of his overflowing wealth of love and his passion to multiply joy."

"The pursuit of perfection is a greater moral influence than the passion for power."

A Day at St Cyrus Nature Reserve Studying Natural Theology....

The St Cyrus Nature reserve is one of the best places to walk beside the sea, cliffs at the side, sand dunes rich in flaura, and if the sun is shining it's one of the brightest places to need sunglasses! The combination of sea, sand and sunlight guaranteed to challenge those sometimes persistent inner shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The walk from the Visitor Centre to the rocks at the far end takes just over an hour if it mixes mostly brisk with occasionally desultory as you take photographs. Anyone know what this is in the pic below?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shaping of sand to landscape is often on a big scale. I liked the gentle lines of the sand around this muckle great rock half way up the beach.

 

 

 

And from big chunks of rock to flower heads the size of petite confetti - the grains of sand give some sense of the scale.

One of those days when you're glad the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it. Indeed.

 

And at the visitor centre the new stone for the 50th birthday of the Nature Reserve.

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In our lives we should be witnesses of "letting be".

Letting be is a way of living according to which we no longer view things, persons or events in terms of their usefulness but accept them in their autonomy.

We no longer wish to possess or subvert things to our own projects; we wish only to restore things to themselves and persons to their own freedom.

In our lives...we should be witnesses of 'letting be'.

To the extent that we are, we are truly countercultural, for letting be attacks the very roots of a culture hell-bent on possession, productivity, and domination. Donald Buggert (Carmelite Friar)

The buddleia was growing beside a river near Stonehaven - and the butterflies are enjoying their autonomy!

Theological Reflection on a Frog.

We have a new addition to our family, defined as the various denizens who live in and around our house. In the wee pond at the foot fo the garden we now have a resident frog. Andrew who is the acquaculture expert around here dug a small 18 inch hole, planted it with water plants and marsh plants and created a mini-ecosystem which our frog clearly approves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favourite nature poet, John Clare, had a sensitive and compassionate understanding of creaturely life. His poetry reveals his intimate knowledge and alert experience of nature around him. His bird poems are amongst the best in our language. His poem Summer Evening, which I've quoted below, shows just how observant, sympathetic and "green" Clare was, a couple of centuries before any of us caught up with his way of looking at the world around us. More than most he saw human activity as despoiling, threatening and wasteful of nature's gifts, and understood human behaviour to be more about replenishing the earth rather than dominating it. Sure he recognised that nature has its cruelties and necessities; but these are natural in a way that human activity is not; manufacturing on an industrial scale, a free for all for the earth's resources of land, minerals, forests and wood, fossil fuels, tolerance of polluted oceans, and addiction to processes that accelerate climate change. Human greed is one of the original sins and is the primary ingredient in the setting agent that enables us to build structural sins into the machinery and plant of the human economy. The last two lines of Clare's poem capture exactly the inward groan of a looted creation awaiting its redemption.

John Clare didn't live to see the full impact of the Industrial Revolution. But for his illness he might have been a David Attenborough though, or at least a presenter on Countryfile. In any case, he would have smiled and nodded appreciatively at Andrew's handiwork, and the provision of a purpose built home for our frog.

Summer Evening

The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past, and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
And drops again when no more noise it hears.
Thus nature's human link and endless thrall,
Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.

John Clare