Brass eagles don't usually leap into the mind when the weather is cold - monkeys are much more likely. However, today I want to consider a brass eagle like this one, a lectern in a chilly church on an icy Sunday. Specifically, and not to detract from this magnificent specimen in the Cathedral of The Isles, I want to consider the lectern in Holy Trinity, Dunoon, and its effect on me this icy morning.
Today was my turn to preach. Having read the gospel (it was a lay-led service), I propped my notes on the lectionary as usual - and found that they wouldn't stay put unless I held on a bit. (The lectionary at this early point in the year lies a bit lop-sided when open at the right page). I tend to hang on to the wing-tips anyway, as it anchors the hands in a decorous sort of fashion.
Halfway through I had a vision. It was not an angelic vision, nor was it helpful. I pictured myself as in a heat-imager: starting off quite red and glowing, in my good wool coat to the ankles and the fur-lined boots. Within moments, my hands are blue, then black. The glowing red is drained out of my shape, passing instead to the eagle. By the end of the sermon, my frozen body retreats and the eagle, glowing like the Phoenix, takes off and soars down the church.
There you are. I told you it wasn't helpful. But I must try to do something different with my hands next time.
Or wear gloves ...
Showing posts with label preaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preaching. Show all posts
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
When teacher's away ...
It’s such a relief, such a good feeling, when old friends find in each other what they need to make progress. Such a feeling as this morning’s, when three of us lay people who have to preach on a fairly regular basis met to break the back of the next three lay sermons – one apiece. We’d all done our homework, reading the Lectionary readings for all three days, thinking about the themes involved – thinking. Real thought. And so when we met we were able to listen constructively, to question, to demand a little more, and to appreciate one another.
It is a while since we’ve had to do this without the teacher, but we found ourselves slipping comfortably into our role, able to express appreciation of the work of another without constraint. And perhaps there will be less theological depth to our preaching, but for now this will suffice. The confidence gained by having one’s colleagues on board for an adventure is priceless – as were some of the jokes and rabbit holes down which we wandered.
I used to have a book at school called “Physics is fun”. I never found it so – but on today’s showing, theology is fun. A good thought as we await Pentecost.
It is a while since we’ve had to do this without the teacher, but we found ourselves slipping comfortably into our role, able to express appreciation of the work of another without constraint. And perhaps there will be less theological depth to our preaching, but for now this will suffice. The confidence gained by having one’s colleagues on board for an adventure is priceless – as were some of the jokes and rabbit holes down which we wandered.
I used to have a book at school called “Physics is fun”. I never found it so – but on today’s showing, theology is fun. A good thought as we await Pentecost.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Unprepared
I had to preach this morning. I was relatively unprepared, for I only learned about it last week, while I was in France - in the very heart of Delville Wood, to be precise. Not having a bible or lectionary with me, I wasn't in a position to do more than fret, briefly, and put all thought of sermons aside until I was home again. By the time I was on the coach driving through England, I knew I'd be preaching about my experiences in France, whatever the readings for the day.
In the event, the Gospel was ideal - greater love hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friend. What a gift. And because it was Morning Prayer, the response to the gospel reading: Death is swallowed up in victory. So for once I didn't write a sermon. A page of bullet points served to remind me of the order in which I wanted to arrange my thoughts, and a poem I'd just written to finish off with. And from the moment I stood up and looked at my hearers I felt that this was what I needed to do on this day.
I spoke of the question which had troubled many of us as we looked at the inscriptions at the foot of the gravestones: where was God in all this? For on every stone where a soldier was named, there was this additional line supplied by his family at a cost of 31/2d per letter, to a maximum of 60 letters. On the stones of the countless unknown soldiers were the words "Known unto God", but on the others? Not cries of anguish and loss, but words of hope and faith and belief.
And I spoke of the lack of preparedness on the part of these soldiers - for who could be adequately prepared to walk uphill, carrying a 60lb pack and rifle, slowly, into a hail of machine-gun bullets? To watch the first rank of their comrades fall and then hear the whistle and go over the top to share their fate? Why did they do this?
I recalled the title of a book I saw in a museum shop: You can't shoot a man with a cold. This chimed so wonderfully with the thoughts I'd been having, the notion that just as it seemed important to feel well to go on holiday, to cope with the rigours of travel, so it would be important to feel in top form to fight in the trenches - which of course the soldiers emphatically did not. They were cold, wet, muddy, suffering from trench foot and diarrhoea, with no respite at the end of the day if they survived - just more of the same. Not in a fit state to die, really.
And it came back to the inevitability of God's love, in which our lack of preparedness makes no difference. No matter what circumstances distract us or make us feel unworthy, no matter how unready to face God we may feel, God's love is constant. Nothing we can do will change it.
Written like that, it looks bald and abrupt, and part of me wishes I had a written copy somewhere. But I couldn't have read this sermon; it needed to be spontaneous and alive. I'm glad that despite all the distractions and metaphorical minefields I didn't back out of delivering it, and I'm humbled by the response from my listeners.
And at least one of them thought my poem was by someone well-known!
In the event, the Gospel was ideal - greater love hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friend. What a gift. And because it was Morning Prayer, the response to the gospel reading: Death is swallowed up in victory. So for once I didn't write a sermon. A page of bullet points served to remind me of the order in which I wanted to arrange my thoughts, and a poem I'd just written to finish off with. And from the moment I stood up and looked at my hearers I felt that this was what I needed to do on this day.
I spoke of the question which had troubled many of us as we looked at the inscriptions at the foot of the gravestones: where was God in all this? For on every stone where a soldier was named, there was this additional line supplied by his family at a cost of 31/2d per letter, to a maximum of 60 letters. On the stones of the countless unknown soldiers were the words "Known unto God", but on the others? Not cries of anguish and loss, but words of hope and faith and belief.
And I spoke of the lack of preparedness on the part of these soldiers - for who could be adequately prepared to walk uphill, carrying a 60lb pack and rifle, slowly, into a hail of machine-gun bullets? To watch the first rank of their comrades fall and then hear the whistle and go over the top to share their fate? Why did they do this?
I recalled the title of a book I saw in a museum shop: You can't shoot a man with a cold. This chimed so wonderfully with the thoughts I'd been having, the notion that just as it seemed important to feel well to go on holiday, to cope with the rigours of travel, so it would be important to feel in top form to fight in the trenches - which of course the soldiers emphatically did not. They were cold, wet, muddy, suffering from trench foot and diarrhoea, with no respite at the end of the day if they survived - just more of the same. Not in a fit state to die, really.
And it came back to the inevitability of God's love, in which our lack of preparedness makes no difference. No matter what circumstances distract us or make us feel unworthy, no matter how unready to face God we may feel, God's love is constant. Nothing we can do will change it.
Written like that, it looks bald and abrupt, and part of me wishes I had a written copy somewhere. But I couldn't have read this sermon; it needed to be spontaneous and alive. I'm glad that despite all the distractions and metaphorical minefields I didn't back out of delivering it, and I'm humbled by the response from my listeners.
And at least one of them thought my poem was by someone well-known!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Evensong
The gloom has descended again. The rain has returned, and the wind is already driving the sea over the prom in great white flourishes. According to the excellent Met Office site the weekend is going to be fiercely windy, though apparently not unremittingly wet. And just at this time of day, just as darkness (as distinct from grey miserableness) falls, I'm aware of the power of dusk to evoke memories, emotions.
Larkin knew all about that - the sun's
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening -
in his poem The Old Fools; I used to enjoy awakening that realisation in the minds of Higher English students and seeing the lights come on as they made it their own. And I think of the bleakness of the time just before the evening meal in hospital, and how I wept when my no. 1 son left at the end of hospital visiting time the day before no. 2 son was born and I stood looking at the dark road as the car disappeared and felt completely bereft. There's something about the dying of the day which speaks to us of the final dying of the light, and the telly's not yet assumed its cheerful dominance of the evening and the book has been set aside to save some of it for later (oh, the horror of having nothing to read!) ... enough.
Usually these moments are combatted in my life by physical activity - the walk regardless of the weather, the tea with a friend at the end of a hike. But today I have swum vigorously before spending the morning in mental activity. Surely enough to keep me going? I shall think instead about a question which came up as we discussed the sermons latent in a set of lectionary readings. (Not a current set - Year C, if you're wondering). For it's a fact that as often as not the gospel rakes up a current issue, and for an amateur preacher (for want of a better expression) that's dangerous territory. If you follow this blog, you'll understand when I say that Jesus' refusal to let his followers call down fire on a Samaritan village that wouldn't receive them made me think of the the current situation in Palestine. So I'm looking forward to the session where we discuss how we deal with the bee in the bonnet that starts to buzz in response to the Gospel.
It's almost dark now, and I can forget the weather for 15 hours. And in the dark, there will be no bombers, no flares, no sirens, no death from the skies. What's a spot of rain?
Larkin knew all about that - the sun's
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening -
in his poem The Old Fools; I used to enjoy awakening that realisation in the minds of Higher English students and seeing the lights come on as they made it their own. And I think of the bleakness of the time just before the evening meal in hospital, and how I wept when my no. 1 son left at the end of hospital visiting time the day before no. 2 son was born and I stood looking at the dark road as the car disappeared and felt completely bereft. There's something about the dying of the day which speaks to us of the final dying of the light, and the telly's not yet assumed its cheerful dominance of the evening and the book has been set aside to save some of it for later (oh, the horror of having nothing to read!) ... enough.
Usually these moments are combatted in my life by physical activity - the walk regardless of the weather, the tea with a friend at the end of a hike. But today I have swum vigorously before spending the morning in mental activity. Surely enough to keep me going? I shall think instead about a question which came up as we discussed the sermons latent in a set of lectionary readings. (Not a current set - Year C, if you're wondering). For it's a fact that as often as not the gospel rakes up a current issue, and for an amateur preacher (for want of a better expression) that's dangerous territory. If you follow this blog, you'll understand when I say that Jesus' refusal to let his followers call down fire on a Samaritan village that wouldn't receive them made me think of the the current situation in Palestine. So I'm looking forward to the session where we discuss how we deal with the bee in the bonnet that starts to buzz in response to the Gospel.
It's almost dark now, and I can forget the weather for 15 hours. And in the dark, there will be no bombers, no flares, no sirens, no death from the skies. What's a spot of rain?
Monday, November 10, 2008
Difficult remembering
Remembrance Sunday has been a difficult day for as long as I can remember. From the day my three-year-old self wondered why my normally cheerful mother would become tearful because of whatever-it-was on the radio, right through to the years when I was stuck in the choir in church resenting the inclusion of the national anthem in the day's hymns, struggling to reconcile the religious faith which had landed me in CND, demonstrating, making speeches and appearing on TV and radio to deplore the deployment of nuclear weapons with the church which at that time seemed to deplore what I was doing... it's not been a day with which I felt safe.And then I end up in my current role as a member of our lay worship team having to preach a Remembrance Sunday sermon. It was the most difficult of all I've done, mainly because I couldn't actually imagine myself doing it. I didn't know where to start. I think I had visions of people who knew my past standing up and hurling things - no matter what I said.
It didn't happen. I realised as I worked on the sermon that we all move on, and that compassion had replaced anger as the overwhelming emotion of the day. But I wonder if I'd ever have realised that if I hadn't had to stand up in public and address the issue.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Walking on water?
I’m writing this on Sunday morning, watching Edublogger’s latest keynote – or second latest or whatever – and growing slightly concerned by the realisation that I’m preaching in just over an hour and I haven’t delivered the sermon to the mirror, or even timed it. I usually do this, but I’ve had friends staying for the past three days and time has flown, in talking, walking and – inevitably – catering.
I have been thinking about this sermon, however, for the past three weeks (that’s when I found out it was my turn). And for once, almost all of my subject-matter is my own – either self-generated or springing from conversation with Kimberly – with one theological area which was new to me but which made something else fall into place.
And where does Ewan’s video come into it? Well, I still hanker after the ease with which I used to teach my own subject – that total familiarity which allowed for a rapport with my students and the chance that I too might enjoy the experience. The audience in the video is an adult one, as mine will be in – woops – an hour. I have my bullet points, and the full script as backup. But I know that something vital to the process will be missing.
No-one will put their hand up. No-one will volunteer an answer to a rhetorical question. no-one will burst out laughing – though that will probably be because I’ll be inhibited too. And no-one really imagines that I have any authority to be telling them anything.
I’m an English teacher, not a theologian. I’m a good teacher, I have expertise in language and literature – but few people recognise that there is skill involved here. I’m perfectly happy talking to adults, but I’d find a crowd at a demonstration less challenging than a tiny congregation who have known me for years. And so I’ll stick to my bullet-points and not make any asides, and I hope I’ll not be boring and that maybe – just maybe – some Good News will seep through the cracks.
Here we go.
Footnote: I've often said that we of the Lay Team should be subjected to the equivalent of a student teacher's Crit Lesson - a Mystery Worshipper sort of thing. Today I had my MW in the shape of the Primus. Beware of what you ask for ....
I have been thinking about this sermon, however, for the past three weeks (that’s when I found out it was my turn). And for once, almost all of my subject-matter is my own – either self-generated or springing from conversation with Kimberly – with one theological area which was new to me but which made something else fall into place.
And where does Ewan’s video come into it? Well, I still hanker after the ease with which I used to teach my own subject – that total familiarity which allowed for a rapport with my students and the chance that I too might enjoy the experience. The audience in the video is an adult one, as mine will be in – woops – an hour. I have my bullet points, and the full script as backup. But I know that something vital to the process will be missing.
No-one will put their hand up. No-one will volunteer an answer to a rhetorical question. no-one will burst out laughing – though that will probably be because I’ll be inhibited too. And no-one really imagines that I have any authority to be telling them anything.
I’m an English teacher, not a theologian. I’m a good teacher, I have expertise in language and literature – but few people recognise that there is skill involved here. I’m perfectly happy talking to adults, but I’d find a crowd at a demonstration less challenging than a tiny congregation who have known me for years. And so I’ll stick to my bullet-points and not make any asides, and I hope I’ll not be boring and that maybe – just maybe – some Good News will seep through the cracks.
Here we go.
Footnote: I've often said that we of the Lay Team should be subjected to the equivalent of a student teacher's Crit Lesson - a Mystery Worshipper sort of thing. Today I had my MW in the shape of the Primus. Beware of what you ask for ....
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Biting the bullet
When I was teaching, I rarely used any prompt other than the text we were studying. Yes, I'd annotate poems, short stories, drama, and I'd stick markers in novels to remind me where important events happened or there was an example of some feature I wanted to highlight, but that was as far as it went. If I was doing something particularly intricate with a Higher class, then I might have some notes scribbled in a jotter to which I'd refer to check I wasn't missing anything, or to ensure that the class weren't confused by poor sequencing on my part, but on the whole I preferred to go where the class and the text would lead me.
Not so with preaching. Until today, when I've had to deliver a sermon I've written out the whole thing verbatim, and read it. Because I'm used to public speaking, I was able to look at the congregation fairly convincingly, but I always felt shackled - and as a result felt the whole thing had been a bit stilted. I did this, obviously, because I didn't feel sufficiently confident in this role - and perhaps also because my audience was always completely silent and apparently attentive. Maybe I always relied on the interaction with the class to make me a good teacher - I certainly valued it and would challenge the passive class to say something, even if it seemed out of place.
Today, however, I managed to move a step closer to my goal. I preached a sermon from a page of bullet points - and I found myself enjoying it. I was able to enlarge on ideas using images which came into my head as I spoke, and I was rewarded by the smiles - and even the nods - of people in the congregation. The theology was simple to the point of being simplistic - but no-one seemed to mind. I shall keep on with the study - but I shall not go back to the written sermon. Cheers!
Not so with preaching. Until today, when I've had to deliver a sermon I've written out the whole thing verbatim, and read it. Because I'm used to public speaking, I was able to look at the congregation fairly convincingly, but I always felt shackled - and as a result felt the whole thing had been a bit stilted. I did this, obviously, because I didn't feel sufficiently confident in this role - and perhaps also because my audience was always completely silent and apparently attentive. Maybe I always relied on the interaction with the class to make me a good teacher - I certainly valued it and would challenge the passive class to say something, even if it seemed out of place.
Today, however, I managed to move a step closer to my goal. I preached a sermon from a page of bullet points - and I found myself enjoying it. I was able to enlarge on ideas using images which came into my head as I spoke, and I was rewarded by the smiles - and even the nods - of people in the congregation. The theology was simple to the point of being simplistic - but no-one seemed to mind. I shall keep on with the study - but I shall not go back to the written sermon. Cheers!
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