Responding to theology

Every month or so, our Lay Training group meets to learn, to share and to grow. In between times, we do our homework. This time round, we were studying in a little more depth than before our response to aspects of the relationship between the Father and the Son. It was interesting that of the three of us present today, all of us had chosen a literary form to convey our responses - one dramatised dialogue and two poems. It was a highly charged and rather splendid session.

For me, this was an occasion when prose was entirely inadequate. I needed the ambiguity, the tricks, if you like, of poetry to convey the depth of my reaction to a section of Jürgen Moltmann's 'The Trinity and the Kingdom' - eight pages on the Passion of Jesus. The density of poetry suited the intensity of the subject. You can read the result here.

Dismantling

A day for returning our places to normality - and how drab and austere they look! As I schlepped down to the pool at 7.40 this morning the town Christmas tree was still lit up; when I returned an hour or so later the council workmen were dismantling it. I spent the morning dismantling my own tree before doing the same to the creche and the Advent wreath in church. And then I sat down to dip into one of my Christmas books, R.S.Thomas:Poetry and Theology by William V. Davis. In the opening chapter, "Poetry in theological crisis", I read this:

Religion has to do ...with vision, revelation, and these are best told of in poetry ... Jesus was a poet ... In another sense, he is God's metaphor ... [And] how shall we attempt to describe or express ultimate reality except through metaphor or symbol? (R.S.T. "A Frame for Poetry")

I have only begun to read the book, but it looks fascinating, in the detailed way that a real devotee of the poems can enjoy. But when I read the above, I felt - just a bit - pleased. Take a look at this poem and see why. And while you're at it, there's a new poem here.

Two sides of the coin

On a dreich West Coast morning, when the East Bay has all but vanished in a haze of rain, I'm preparing to go to Perthshire, where the rain may be less but I shall be too busy to notice. Supervising the clearing-up process after a Cursillo weekend is not something I look forward to, but provides the trigger to some thought about the different activities this Christian journey involves us in. Yesterday cerebral; tomorrow physical.

And I don't know which is the more satisfying - surprising though that may sound. Wrestling with the concepts of theology and Christology (and several other ologies on the way) is stimulating and indulges in the kind of mental gymnastics I have always enjoyed, while making beds and lugging boxes about represents the Martha side of life that I tend to avoid whenever possible. And Cursillo tends not to be on the cerebral side of Christianity - though there are some luminously cerebral people involved. But I know that tomorrow will be hard work and hilarity; exasperation tempered by a determination to display love and cheerfulness; and above all the desire to celebrate a faith which is alive and well and living in all of us.

And quite apart from any preference on my part, I have a feeling that it's very good for me!