The babe leaps in my womb.
and the Spirit has filled all my soul:
blessed are you among women,
and blessed the fruit of your womb!
And why is it granted to me
that the mother of my Lord should come?
For behold, when your voice came to me
the babe in my womb leaped for joy.
And blessed is she who believed
that the word of the Lord would in her
find fulfilment and dwell among men.
C.M.M.
on the day in which the church remembers Mary's visit to Elizabeth.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
New baby, new poem
It's funny how a phone ringing in the night can have you lucid and wide-awake in seconds, especially when it's news of the safe arrival of a new grandson. James McGregor McIntosh was born in the wee hours of this morning - yes, it's been a long day: you don't really slip back into sleep after such news! - and I've been looking at his photos and thinking of the great mystery of life and birth. A new baby is somehow much more mysterious than the child he will become - all that potential, all that personality waiting to unfold but for now held in the precious bud that is a newborn infant.
I've posted a poem I wrote this afternoon here, thinking of it as a conversation with his brother Alan, who is, of course, far too young to worry about such ideas just yet. But I sense that he is still trailing traces of the clouds of glory that he might just recognise in his new wee brother.
I've posted a poem I wrote this afternoon here, thinking of it as a conversation with his brother Alan, who is, of course, far too young to worry about such ideas just yet. But I sense that he is still trailing traces of the clouds of glory that he might just recognise in his new wee brother.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Church must have ...?
I've been taking part in what one commenter dubbed a blogalogue over on Jim Gordon's excellent blog, and feel driven to do a little exploring among some of the distinctive features of my own brand of Christian practice - or maybe, more accurately, among my feelings about them.
Not having been brought up an Episcopalian, I was captivated at first by the experience of singing in the incense-tinged, lovely acoustic of the Cathedral of The Isles, Cumbrae. At first there was no belief, just the music, the beauty, the silence in the spaces, the wisdom of the old Dean, George Douglas. Belief came unsought - and I have always considered that these first factors produced the open-ness of the soul that made belief possible. A sense of mystery, of otherness, of possibility - and for me, an experience quite unlike anything in my Presbyterian upbringing.
So from this period, I would perhaps have said that for me, the things I had to have in my church life were beautiful music, preferably Byrd or Tallis, preferably with me involved in the singing of it; the 1970 liturgy - or even the Prayer Book; incense at the Eucharist; preaching of the highest order (but in 10 minute doses), and silence - profound silence. No chat before or after the service, no children, but high seriousness of purpose and demeanour. And certainly never, ever, a happy-clappy worship song - and note the pejorative description.
Things change as we grow older, and in the intervening 36 years since my confirmation I've come to realise a thing or two. For example, I understand more about my attitude to music. I'm still completely spoiled by having really good organ music when I'm in church (it helps if you marry the really good organist), but we haven't had a regular choir in 20 years and I now know (a) that singing with a good group is a huge privilege but (b) that I can worship with music just as well from the body of the congregation. But if the organist is incompetent at leading the congregation - and some well-qualified organists are terrible - or if the congregational singing is of the baying/dragging/out-of-tune variety, I'd rather go to a said service.
I'd chuck out big chunks of Victorian stuff from the hymn book these days, having discovered the power to move of some modern songs - though some of them would move me right out of the door. So despite my hair-tingling recollection of the first time I sang Let all mortal flesh keep silence, my list of absolute must-haves in music has altered over the years. Similarly, I've learned to place more store by modern liturgical language, though I still love the psalms in their prayer-book version. And Compline as found in the prayer book is a joy - especially if you throw in plainsong - though one I rarely experience. So I guess I'd go for set liturgy as a must-have, but a variety of language, as long as it is beautiful and poetic. And the central must-have of all is the communion, that meeting-point of heaven and earth, beyond rational explanation.
So what's left? Incense and silence. Silence is easy. I love it. I need gaps for things to happen in - gaps in intercessions, between readings, in the middle of the Eucharistic prayers, before a service. Yes. Let's keep silence. And incense? We had glorious incense today, Pentecost, but it has become a rare treat for high days and holidays. I think that's fine too - but the mystery of the symbolism and the antiquity of the ritual seem to me to provide a bridge between past and present, earth and heaven, humanity and God. I wouldn't turn from ecumenism for the sake of incense, but it'd be a missing element, a regret for something lost.
So I suppose I arrive at a situation where I want to share conversation, fellowship, love with Christians from other traditions, but need my own traditions of worship on a regular basis, complete with the Eucharist. Presumably this is what keeps us in our various ruinous buildings, each in our own small corner, struggling to find clergy and cash. And yes, this is diversity rather than division, but maintained at a cost that might finish us all off. And that would be sad, no?
Not having been brought up an Episcopalian, I was captivated at first by the experience of singing in the incense-tinged, lovely acoustic of the Cathedral of The Isles, Cumbrae. At first there was no belief, just the music, the beauty, the silence in the spaces, the wisdom of the old Dean, George Douglas. Belief came unsought - and I have always considered that these first factors produced the open-ness of the soul that made belief possible. A sense of mystery, of otherness, of possibility - and for me, an experience quite unlike anything in my Presbyterian upbringing.
So from this period, I would perhaps have said that for me, the things I had to have in my church life were beautiful music, preferably Byrd or Tallis, preferably with me involved in the singing of it; the 1970 liturgy - or even the Prayer Book; incense at the Eucharist; preaching of the highest order (but in 10 minute doses), and silence - profound silence. No chat before or after the service, no children, but high seriousness of purpose and demeanour. And certainly never, ever, a happy-clappy worship song - and note the pejorative description.
Things change as we grow older, and in the intervening 36 years since my confirmation I've come to realise a thing or two. For example, I understand more about my attitude to music. I'm still completely spoiled by having really good organ music when I'm in church (it helps if you marry the really good organist), but we haven't had a regular choir in 20 years and I now know (a) that singing with a good group is a huge privilege but (b) that I can worship with music just as well from the body of the congregation. But if the organist is incompetent at leading the congregation - and some well-qualified organists are terrible - or if the congregational singing is of the baying/dragging/out-of-tune variety, I'd rather go to a said service.
I'd chuck out big chunks of Victorian stuff from the hymn book these days, having discovered the power to move of some modern songs - though some of them would move me right out of the door. So despite my hair-tingling recollection of the first time I sang Let all mortal flesh keep silence, my list of absolute must-haves in music has altered over the years. Similarly, I've learned to place more store by modern liturgical language, though I still love the psalms in their prayer-book version. And Compline as found in the prayer book is a joy - especially if you throw in plainsong - though one I rarely experience. So I guess I'd go for set liturgy as a must-have, but a variety of language, as long as it is beautiful and poetic. And the central must-have of all is the communion, that meeting-point of heaven and earth, beyond rational explanation.
So what's left? Incense and silence. Silence is easy. I love it. I need gaps for things to happen in - gaps in intercessions, between readings, in the middle of the Eucharistic prayers, before a service. Yes. Let's keep silence. And incense? We had glorious incense today, Pentecost, but it has become a rare treat for high days and holidays. I think that's fine too - but the mystery of the symbolism and the antiquity of the ritual seem to me to provide a bridge between past and present, earth and heaven, humanity and God. I wouldn't turn from ecumenism for the sake of incense, but it'd be a missing element, a regret for something lost.
So I suppose I arrive at a situation where I want to share conversation, fellowship, love with Christians from other traditions, but need my own traditions of worship on a regular basis, complete with the Eucharist. Presumably this is what keeps us in our various ruinous buildings, each in our own small corner, struggling to find clergy and cash. And yes, this is diversity rather than division, but maintained at a cost that might finish us all off. And that would be sad, no?
Friday, May 21, 2010
New poem on Orkney
I've written a new poem, based on my experience in Orkney. I know I need to read and study some more poetry - there's a bit of a desert in my brain right now, born of excessive busyness - but this suggested itself in the form of a sort of incantation.
You can read Touching the past here
You can read Touching the past here
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Waiting
For the past year Holy Trinity Dunoon has been without a priest. As I write, our new priest is supervising the process of stuffing his life into a removal van in preparation for moving here. I know this because of Facebook - I even know that he began feeding the removers cups of tea at an early hour. Good old Facebook, and good old Blogger: we get to know people we've only spoken to for five minutes.
But do we? There is the comforting recognition of shared interests, of course, not the least being an interest in Web 2.0 communication. But despite this, there is a feeling of anticipation that is at once joyful and apprehensive. For a church does not stay alive for a year without a great deal of work from the congregation, people who have had to sublimate their various antipathies in the interests of the common good, people who have had to step far out of their comfort zones, Marys who have turned into Marthas and vice-versa.
The arrival of a new priest should not, of course, mean that all cooperation and hard work ceases forthwith while we all revert to tearing each other's hair out. But there is this sense of handing over the authority to make decisions from a group to one person whom at the moment we barely know. I've been trying to find analogies - is it like when you send your four-year-old to school for the first time? Or when your kids leave home? For this church is ours - maybe more ours than it's been in all the 36 years I've worshipped here. We've made huge decisions about rot and repairs, we've made huge efforts over money and our future, we've held our breath to know if someone would be appointed here or if we'd be stuck with visiting clergy (lovely, but not the same) for ever. And yes, we've felt ownership.
A new priest arrives with so much hope invested in them (I'm using this neutral if sloppy pronoun on purpose) - for growth, for care of souls, for care of our tired spirits. It is that hope which renders us all - priest and people alike - vulnerable as the four-year-old I postulated earlier. No wonder there are nerves on both sides of the equation.
Meanwhile, however, the future looks bright; the Rectory is in better nick than it's been in the whole of my time here and maybe ever (double glazing, for a start), and there's going to be a family living in it. So here's to all of us - and if you're the praying type, spare us a prayer!
But do we? There is the comforting recognition of shared interests, of course, not the least being an interest in Web 2.0 communication. But despite this, there is a feeling of anticipation that is at once joyful and apprehensive. For a church does not stay alive for a year without a great deal of work from the congregation, people who have had to sublimate their various antipathies in the interests of the common good, people who have had to step far out of their comfort zones, Marys who have turned into Marthas and vice-versa.
The arrival of a new priest should not, of course, mean that all cooperation and hard work ceases forthwith while we all revert to tearing each other's hair out. But there is this sense of handing over the authority to make decisions from a group to one person whom at the moment we barely know. I've been trying to find analogies - is it like when you send your four-year-old to school for the first time? Or when your kids leave home? For this church is ours - maybe more ours than it's been in all the 36 years I've worshipped here. We've made huge decisions about rot and repairs, we've made huge efforts over money and our future, we've held our breath to know if someone would be appointed here or if we'd be stuck with visiting clergy (lovely, but not the same) for ever. And yes, we've felt ownership.
A new priest arrives with so much hope invested in them (I'm using this neutral if sloppy pronoun on purpose) - for growth, for care of souls, for care of our tired spirits. It is that hope which renders us all - priest and people alike - vulnerable as the four-year-old I postulated earlier. No wonder there are nerves on both sides of the equation.
Meanwhile, however, the future looks bright; the Rectory is in better nick than it's been in the whole of my time here and maybe ever (double glazing, for a start), and there's going to be a family living in it. So here's to all of us - and if you're the praying type, spare us a prayer!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Touching the ancestors
The recent lack of posting on this blog has been largely because I was away on holiday in Orkney, and though I've been posting photos over on flickr I haven't got round to writing about it.
This was my first visit to Orkney, and came about partly because Mr B had a notion to do a bit of ancestor-hunting on the island of Shapinsay. In the event, we left the Shapinsay trip till our last day in the expectation of sun - a wise move, as it turned out. But before that day I'd already fallen in love with somewhere unlike anywhere I'd ever been. The usual transformation of landscapes brought about by changing light was there, of course, but it was the landscape itself that caught me: these smooth, rolling fields, the low hills backed in the distance by the dark lumps of the mountains on Hoy, the standing stones everywhere, from the huge henge of the Ring of Brodgar (photo) to the random pair we saw in someone's garden, the ancient stone houses of Skara Brae, still with their stone furniture intact.
To the south, there were more recent relics in the Churchill Barriers with their scuttled ships and the Italian Chapel built by the prisoners of war who were working on the barriers. But on the same day as we visited the chapel we also visited the extraordinary Tomb of the Eagles, where we were handed neolithic objects to examine and where I hauled myself on a trolley (such as was used in the movie "The Great Escape") down a low tunnel into the 5,000-year-old tomb on the shore and got stuck on the way back out because the uphill slope brought said trolley to a halt. Because the site here is not under the control of Historic Scotland there are few restrictions - we were told to follow the arrows and if we found ourselves opening a gate we were on the wrong track! There was no-one with us at either house or tomb, and the loneliness and sense of thin-ness was palpable.
The landlady of our excellent B & B asked us if we'd be likely to return. I think the answer is likely to be yes.
This was my first visit to Orkney, and came about partly because Mr B had a notion to do a bit of ancestor-hunting on the island of Shapinsay. In the event, we left the Shapinsay trip till our last day in the expectation of sun - a wise move, as it turned out. But before that day I'd already fallen in love with somewhere unlike anywhere I'd ever been. The usual transformation of landscapes brought about by changing light was there, of course, but it was the landscape itself that caught me: these smooth, rolling fields, the low hills backed in the distance by the dark lumps of the mountains on Hoy, the standing stones everywhere, from the huge henge of the Ring of Brodgar (photo) to the random pair we saw in someone's garden, the ancient stone houses of Skara Brae, still with their stone furniture intact.
To the south, there were more recent relics in the Churchill Barriers with their scuttled ships and the Italian Chapel built by the prisoners of war who were working on the barriers. But on the same day as we visited the chapel we also visited the extraordinary Tomb of the Eagles, where we were handed neolithic objects to examine and where I hauled myself on a trolley (such as was used in the movie "The Great Escape") down a low tunnel into the 5,000-year-old tomb on the shore and got stuck on the way back out because the uphill slope brought said trolley to a halt. Because the site here is not under the control of Historic Scotland there are few restrictions - we were told to follow the arrows and if we found ourselves opening a gate we were on the wrong track! There was no-one with us at either house or tomb, and the loneliness and sense of thin-ness was palpable.
The landlady of our excellent B & B asked us if we'd be likely to return. I think the answer is likely to be yes.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
New blog on the block
There's a new blogger on the Pisky scene. The Revd Andrew Swift arrives in Dunoon this week, and it's high time his aptly named blog, Dances with Midges, appeared on pisky blogrolls. Please pay him a visit and encourage him as he prepares to move to the very heart of midgeland.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Argyll still kicking
The Electoral synod of Argyll and The Isles met yesterday. We should still have been in Oban today, deciding which candidate would become our Bishop, but there were no candidates to hear yesterday, and there is no election today. And I could perhaps have been forgiven for a bit of despair. It's been a long process since September, and we seem no nearer finding a suitable Bishop than we ever were.
But in fact yesterday's meeting was anything but despair-inducing. Without pre-empting the official sources (come on, chaps - what's keeping you?) I feel free to say that the mood yesterday was thoughtful, that our sense of purpose was stronger than ever, that our resolve to find not just any old bishop but someone who would have the special qualities needed for this diocese had deepened. I feel that we have changed over the 36 years I have known Argyll, that the laity are no longer content to sit back and smile indulgently at clerical quirks or leave all the thinking to one of two folks with cut glass accents or titles or both.
It was acknowledged more than once that just as managing a small parish could be a good deal harder than managing a large one, so the demands of running a numerically small diocese were in many ways more challenging than running a large one - and that's before you even begin to consider the ferries, the miles of single-track roads, the weather ... Yes: it takes a special kind of priest to do this, and we shall find one.
The road we chose demonstrates, I think, a profound acceptance of what it means to be a Scottish Episcopalian, and a considerable degree of trust. And after all these weeks of national politics, this felt good.
Stop press (or something): The official wording for what we decided can be found here. If you're too idle to go there, it says this: The Electoral Synod met yesterday (13 May 2010) and adjourned after discussion. The result of this is that the right of election will lapse to the Episcopal Synod, as provided in Canon 4 of the Church’s Code of Canons.
But in fact yesterday's meeting was anything but despair-inducing. Without pre-empting the official sources (come on, chaps - what's keeping you?) I feel free to say that the mood yesterday was thoughtful, that our sense of purpose was stronger than ever, that our resolve to find not just any old bishop but someone who would have the special qualities needed for this diocese had deepened. I feel that we have changed over the 36 years I have known Argyll, that the laity are no longer content to sit back and smile indulgently at clerical quirks or leave all the thinking to one of two folks with cut glass accents or titles or both.
It was acknowledged more than once that just as managing a small parish could be a good deal harder than managing a large one, so the demands of running a numerically small diocese were in many ways more challenging than running a large one - and that's before you even begin to consider the ferries, the miles of single-track roads, the weather ... Yes: it takes a special kind of priest to do this, and we shall find one.
The road we chose demonstrates, I think, a profound acceptance of what it means to be a Scottish Episcopalian, and a considerable degree of trust. And after all these weeks of national politics, this felt good.
Stop press (or something): The official wording for what we decided can be found here. If you're too idle to go there, it says this: The Electoral Synod met yesterday (13 May 2010) and adjourned after discussion. The result of this is that the right of election will lapse to the Episcopal Synod, as provided in Canon 4 of the Church’s Code of Canons.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Bere bannocks
I've been on holiday - and though I took my laptop and had wifi in my excellent B&B I was too busy being on holiday to blog about anything. We were in Orkney (on Orkney?) and it was wonderful, and I shall say more about it when I stop watching news programmes and haring about the diocese. But today I want to share a culinary first and a little bit of Orkney with anyone who's interested in easy, wonderful-tasting food.I made bannocks. Not just ordinary bannocks, but bere bannocks. That's them in the picture, almost ready to take off the griddle which is actually a beautiful pan for making crepes which I bought in Quimper many years ago. I bought a lovely big brown paper sack of bere meal in the shop on Shapinsay during a wonderful day of ancestor-hunting, and the owner of the shop, Thomas Sinclair, offered to have a recipe written out for me when I came by to collect it before we went for the ferry. This is the recipe, and the results were delicious.
BERE BANNOCKS
1 cup of bere meal
1 cup of plain flour (I used strong white)
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaped teaspoon baking soda
buttermilk to mix (I used a carton which was about the same size as a tall cup)
Mix all ingredients together into a soft dough, and knead thoroughly. Divide into two or three pieces depending on how many/big you want your bannocks to be.
Cook on a griddle till the squishy bit in the middle has just turned firm (I poked to make sure - Mr Sinclair's recipe just said 'cook till done')
Split down the middle and put delicious things on it. (Mr S suggested razor clams, but I had other ideas)
Enjoy!
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Sermon: Love one another ...
This is what I preached today. It went down well with many people, but explosively badly with at least one other. It's in this awful bullet-pointed format because that's what I use - there is no ordinary joined-up copy of it on my computer. It's here for the people who don't use Facebook.
• Do you ever think about your tribe?
• What tribe you belong to?
• I want you to think about that now.
• Because you can be sure that your politicians, the people who want you to vote for them this week, have their eyes on you as members of a tribe.
• And they give the tribes names – names you may not even have heard of. Strivers – the aspiring middle classes who want more, better, who are prepared to work all hours to get it.
• Boomers – that’s people like me, all hitting pensionable age, though in our heads we may still be hippies or rockers
• Youth vote – not many of them around, eh?
• Digerati – sounds like an obscure tribe fighting against ancient Rome, but actually first time voters, organizing and being contacted online
• And then of course there’s our tiny tribe of Scottish Piskies
• And larger ones tied to political parties
• And national ones – Scots, English, French, Hungarian …
• And by and large, unless there’s an election on, we tend to mix pretty amicably and not make much of a fuss about our tribes … don’t we?
• And I’ll come back to that idea. Hold on to it.
• The Jewish believers in the reading from Acts were critical of Peter’s actions in eating with uncircumcised men.
• Both circumcision and the dietary laws of the Jews may have begun as common sense for hygiene in a hot country
• But at the time of the Exile in Babylon these laws were extended and firmed up to preserve the unity and the purity of the Jewish people
• So by the first century the Jews felt defined by the laws which the first followers of Christ took on with them into their new faith
• They wanted to maintain their “specialness” – their unique identity
• And here was Peter apparently throwing this uniqueness to the winds, sharing the new faith with all sorts of unsuitable people.
• And Peter tells them his dream.
• Look at how he first answers the voice which has told him “kill and eat”
• “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth”
• Can you hear the tone of voice? Try emphasizing the word “my” – how exclusive, how self-satisfied does that sound?
• Think about how exclusive we can all feel at times … eg -
• Piskies – much better than Presbyterians
• Or think about the fact that there are people, like us, that we never even meet –
• For I found myself saying the other day that these Strivers, these men who spend their lives driving up and down the motorway from Milton Keynes, who hardly see their wives and the families they work so hard to support, who work all hours and make and spend far more than I ever thought of earning –
• I said that I didn’t know anyone like that.
• They are another tribe.
• I was talking then about voting patterns and the electorate
• But I could have been just like the circumcised Christians, couldn’t I? (meaning?)
• So – what is God’s answer to this exclusive behaviour? This exclusive mindset?
• Maybe the answer’s in the second reading:
• A new heaven and a new earth?
• But we have to look at the Gospel for the way to achieve this new earth.
• God has shown the way through the person of Jesus
• God has been glorified in the person of Jesus
• And in turn Jesus is glorified in himself
• And Jesus, glorified by God, with all the authority of God, tells us what to do in this short passage from his last supper with the disciples.
• We cannot follow Jesus on his final journey, we cannot be Jesus
• But we can do this new thing he tells us
• We have to love one another.
• We have to love one another in the way that Jesus loved his disciples.
• Now – remember what I said to hold on to?
• ..that in our own lives we tend to mix amicably and not care too much about the different tribes we belong to?
• The readings today all call us to go further.
• They call us not to the very British politeness that marks our electoral Leaders’ debates
• Not merely to the absence of confrontation – for it is a very British thing to avoid outright confrontation with people we disagree with –
• Not just to be polite to people who are different from us in some way – even if we say what we really think the moment we get away from them (GB)
• Jesus’ words call us not to turn our backs on people who do things differently or have a different lifestyle or background from us
• And right now, Jesus’ words call us not to condone the way our political parties smear their opponents
• Not to condone the way the press smears just about everyone in turn
• Not to let people get on with their own affairs without ever wondering if they need help
• None of these easy options – and I haven’t even mentioned the more extreme “not-to”s like going to war or using Trident missiles or punching people on the face –
• None of these things are what we are called to do.
• No
• We are called to love people
• How much love was there, do you think, in that incident last week?
• When GB described that woman as a bigot and was pilloried for it?
• How much love did the woman show in her complaints?
• How much love did the Sky reporter show for the woman when she tracked her down, told her what Brown had said – on camera?
• How much love did any of us show when we watched Brown’s face fall when he realized what he’d done?
• When we mocked his apology?
• Gosh, we all had fun there, didn’t we – but there wasn’t a lot of love around.
• But we are called to love everyone …
• We are called to love people in such a way that we don’t notice any difference between them and ourselves
• To love them in such a way that we strive to do the best for them in whatever area of need we find them
• To be honest and open in our love, to share not only what we have but also what other people offer us
• To regard nothing as alien or liable to contaminate us
• For God has created us all
• And it is out of that knowledge that we must live, and act – and yes, even vote – even if Christianity is no longer a part of our politicians’ lives
• - even if the Christian message is derided by those who seek power
• We have to live in the way Christ commanded
• We have to love one another
• And in that living, that loving, we shall find ourselves in God’s new creation.
• Amen.
• Do you ever think about your tribe?
• What tribe you belong to?
• I want you to think about that now.
• Because you can be sure that your politicians, the people who want you to vote for them this week, have their eyes on you as members of a tribe.
• And they give the tribes names – names you may not even have heard of. Strivers – the aspiring middle classes who want more, better, who are prepared to work all hours to get it.
• Boomers – that’s people like me, all hitting pensionable age, though in our heads we may still be hippies or rockers
• Youth vote – not many of them around, eh?
• Digerati – sounds like an obscure tribe fighting against ancient Rome, but actually first time voters, organizing and being contacted online
• And then of course there’s our tiny tribe of Scottish Piskies
• And larger ones tied to political parties
• And national ones – Scots, English, French, Hungarian …
• And by and large, unless there’s an election on, we tend to mix pretty amicably and not make much of a fuss about our tribes … don’t we?
• And I’ll come back to that idea. Hold on to it.
• The Jewish believers in the reading from Acts were critical of Peter’s actions in eating with uncircumcised men.
• Both circumcision and the dietary laws of the Jews may have begun as common sense for hygiene in a hot country
• But at the time of the Exile in Babylon these laws were extended and firmed up to preserve the unity and the purity of the Jewish people
• So by the first century the Jews felt defined by the laws which the first followers of Christ took on with them into their new faith
• They wanted to maintain their “specialness” – their unique identity
• And here was Peter apparently throwing this uniqueness to the winds, sharing the new faith with all sorts of unsuitable people.
• And Peter tells them his dream.
• Look at how he first answers the voice which has told him “kill and eat”
• “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth”
• Can you hear the tone of voice? Try emphasizing the word “my” – how exclusive, how self-satisfied does that sound?
• Think about how exclusive we can all feel at times … eg -
• Piskies – much better than Presbyterians
• Or think about the fact that there are people, like us, that we never even meet –
• For I found myself saying the other day that these Strivers, these men who spend their lives driving up and down the motorway from Milton Keynes, who hardly see their wives and the families they work so hard to support, who work all hours and make and spend far more than I ever thought of earning –
• I said that I didn’t know anyone like that.
• They are another tribe.
• I was talking then about voting patterns and the electorate
• But I could have been just like the circumcised Christians, couldn’t I? (meaning?)
• So – what is God’s answer to this exclusive behaviour? This exclusive mindset?
• Maybe the answer’s in the second reading:
• A new heaven and a new earth?
• But we have to look at the Gospel for the way to achieve this new earth.
• God has shown the way through the person of Jesus
• God has been glorified in the person of Jesus
• And in turn Jesus is glorified in himself
• And Jesus, glorified by God, with all the authority of God, tells us what to do in this short passage from his last supper with the disciples.
• We cannot follow Jesus on his final journey, we cannot be Jesus
• But we can do this new thing he tells us
• We have to love one another.
• We have to love one another in the way that Jesus loved his disciples.
• Now – remember what I said to hold on to?
• ..that in our own lives we tend to mix amicably and not care too much about the different tribes we belong to?
• The readings today all call us to go further.
• They call us not to the very British politeness that marks our electoral Leaders’ debates
• Not merely to the absence of confrontation – for it is a very British thing to avoid outright confrontation with people we disagree with –
• Not just to be polite to people who are different from us in some way – even if we say what we really think the moment we get away from them (GB)
• Jesus’ words call us not to turn our backs on people who do things differently or have a different lifestyle or background from us
• And right now, Jesus’ words call us not to condone the way our political parties smear their opponents
• Not to condone the way the press smears just about everyone in turn
• Not to let people get on with their own affairs without ever wondering if they need help
• None of these easy options – and I haven’t even mentioned the more extreme “not-to”s like going to war or using Trident missiles or punching people on the face –
• None of these things are what we are called to do.
• No
• We are called to love people
• How much love was there, do you think, in that incident last week?
• When GB described that woman as a bigot and was pilloried for it?
• How much love did the woman show in her complaints?
• How much love did the Sky reporter show for the woman when she tracked her down, told her what Brown had said – on camera?
• How much love did any of us show when we watched Brown’s face fall when he realized what he’d done?
• When we mocked his apology?
• Gosh, we all had fun there, didn’t we – but there wasn’t a lot of love around.
• But we are called to love everyone …
• We are called to love people in such a way that we don’t notice any difference between them and ourselves
• To love them in such a way that we strive to do the best for them in whatever area of need we find them
• To be honest and open in our love, to share not only what we have but also what other people offer us
• To regard nothing as alien or liable to contaminate us
• For God has created us all
• And it is out of that knowledge that we must live, and act – and yes, even vote – even if Christianity is no longer a part of our politicians’ lives
• - even if the Christian message is derided by those who seek power
• We have to live in the way Christ commanded
• We have to love one another
• And in that living, that loving, we shall find ourselves in God’s new creation.
• Amen.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Blinkered vision
Last weekend I ordered a book from Amazon - oh, the fatally easy one-click ordering! - and realised as I hit "buy" that it would arrive when I was away from home. Never mind, I thought - it's a paperback; it's going to fit through the box. Nae problem.
Later that day my pal, knowing the hunt I had had for a particular scarf, rang me from her foray to deepest England to tell me she'd found one and was posting it. "I'll be away ..." I said, but she reassured me. It was small and light and in a small envelope. It would fit through the letter-box. Again, nae problem.
We arrived home on Wednesday afternoon to find the familiar post-card from the postie. "You were out". Indubitably. I would have to wait till next morning to find my parcel - for it mentioned only one. What, I wondered, had become of the other one?
Yesterday morning I found out. The postie - or whoever prepares mail for his round - had fastened my book and the envelope with the scarf together with one of the Post Office elastic bands that tend to litter the doorstep. But the postie hadn't removed said band this time, despite the fact that individually the book packet and the scarf envelope slid easily through the box. No, he had solemnly written that this parcel was too big to go through and that I would have to collect it.
Dead convenient, no?
Later that day my pal, knowing the hunt I had had for a particular scarf, rang me from her foray to deepest England to tell me she'd found one and was posting it. "I'll be away ..." I said, but she reassured me. It was small and light and in a small envelope. It would fit through the letter-box. Again, nae problem.
We arrived home on Wednesday afternoon to find the familiar post-card from the postie. "You were out". Indubitably. I would have to wait till next morning to find my parcel - for it mentioned only one. What, I wondered, had become of the other one?
Yesterday morning I found out. The postie - or whoever prepares mail for his round - had fastened my book and the envelope with the scarf together with one of the Post Office elastic bands that tend to litter the doorstep. But the postie hadn't removed said band this time, despite the fact that individually the book packet and the scarf envelope slid easily through the box. No, he had solemnly written that this parcel was too big to go through and that I would have to collect it.
Dead convenient, no?
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Electoral circus
Last night's news left me more despairing about this election than I can ever remember. And the inane phone-in on BBC Scotland this morning hasn't helped. How can anyone pretend that they never express private opinions at odds with their public face? The idea that it was somehow heinous for Gordon Brown to smile (and smile, and be a villain - see, Shakespeare knew it all) at that woman (no - by the 10pm news she was "a pensioner" - instant pathos) and then allow himself a private girn in his refreshingly original accent (not the rather more bland public one) is simply daft. Or mischief-making. Ok, it was singularly silly not to remember he was wearing a mic - but it happens. And usually it's a laugh.
One look, a moment later, at shiny Dave; one flash of the steady Honest Gaze of The Clegg - how can we take this seriously? Brown is like the rest of us, maybe - willing to put on a smile to ease the situation, honest enough to collapse in unguarded fury afterwards. He may well have made mega-mistakes in government, but no-one's really talking about them any more. This election, mates, is a circus.
Ok, the woman was pissed off at him. And she may well change the voting habits of a lifetime because of that. But must the rest of the electorate join her?
One look, a moment later, at shiny Dave; one flash of the steady Honest Gaze of The Clegg - how can we take this seriously? Brown is like the rest of us, maybe - willing to put on a smile to ease the situation, honest enough to collapse in unguarded fury afterwards. He may well have made mega-mistakes in government, but no-one's really talking about them any more. This election, mates, is a circus.
Ok, the woman was pissed off at him. And she may well change the voting habits of a lifetime because of that. But must the rest of the electorate join her?
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Unreal city ...
There are some benefits to having a cold bad enough to keep you grounded, of which reading - even, as I suggested in the last post, reading turgid Victorian accounts of Alpine ascents - must surely be the most enduring. I've positively galloped through Amanda Craig's Hearts and Minds", enjoying it so much that I've just ordered another of her novels. I shall never see London and Londoners in quite the same light after reading this - the Guardian's description of "the big, panoramic London novel we've been waiting for" just about hits it.I was impressed by the skill with which the five main characters are drawn, gradually filled in and slowly and inevitably pulled together, and delighted by the strings that weren't tied - the suspicion that there was a further connection left unmade, the doubt left as to precisely what another character might have done or not done. I noted yet another contemporary fiction brought alive by the constant present tense, and the different pace of modern speech after the Greene I read earlier last week. This is skilful, flowing prose that kept me reading instead of fretting, a book I lugged on the train to Glasgow after only a chapter, because I was too hooked to leave it for a day.
I suppose what I learned most from Hearts and Minds was just a hint of the way so much ordinary life teeters on top of so much that is extraordinary - made so by the problem of asylum seekers, economic migrants and the immigration laws. In a way that reminds me of Roman citizens closing their minds to the implications of slavery in their culture, we see the middle classes' reliance on the services of illegal immigrants and their willingness to ignore why, for example, their au pair works for so little, or seems so exhausted by mid-afternoon. When Polly's au pair vanishes suddenly, her reaction is one of irritation, disappointment, panic for her child-care arrangements - but not panic for the au pair or her fate. All this changes as she, like the novel, starts making connections.
Enough, already. Read it!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Rose, thou art sick ...
Feeling oppressed by the latest in a series of colds - after 6 years without one, I've had 4 in the past year as well as a proper dose of flu - I found myself recalling the colds of childhood. Nowadays, children have their own dedicated medicine - Calpol in varying strengths, for instance - but in the late '40s and '50s there didn't seem to be any such thing. This morning I was suddenly taken back to the taste of Disprin crushed in a teaspoonful of raspberry jam, and the bottle of pink liquid - may have been called Mystol - that was dripped into my nose from a glass dropper to relieve congestion. And I remembered the miserable long nights when I would waken with a raging thirst and try to eke out the tumbler of water that had been left beside my bed - why, in God's name, did I not get up and replenish it? Was I too small to reach the sink?
At that time my parents' bedroom seemed miles from where I slept in the maid's room off the kitchen. The distance must've worried them too, for when I was seriously ill (as when I had whooping cough, for instance) my long-suffering father would sleep in the kitchen on the camp bed he'd brought back from the Western Desert; later I can remember changing beds with one or other of my parents - who never enjoyed sleeping in a double bed - so that someone could keep an eye on me. This was a great treat, as my own bed had a horsehair mattress of fairly unyielding discomfort, and I found their beds miraculously comfortable. Less yielding was the stone hot water bottle that my father liked - you could break a toe on it, or send it crashing through the floor to the flat below if you tried to kick it out of the bed. (I think that was probably an exaggeration, but it convinced me)
Another thing about Being Ill in those days was the fact that I seemed to spend interminable hours - days, even - in bed. You didn't get up until you were better in these days; I suppose the house was cold and there was no telly to seduce you, but it was a feature of recovery that when I did emerge into the family again my legs would be as wobbly as those of a new-born colt. I read hundreds of books - I clearly remember reading Edward Whymper's Scrambles amongst the Alps when I was eight, having run out of anything more suited to my own age group. Perhaps my progress in English was directly linked to all these shivery days in bed.
All this reminiscing is making me feel worse, but I have one last memory of a symptom which to this day tells me I'm under the weather: when I was ill, the toothpaste never tasted right. Does that ring any bells out there?
At that time my parents' bedroom seemed miles from where I slept in the maid's room off the kitchen. The distance must've worried them too, for when I was seriously ill (as when I had whooping cough, for instance) my long-suffering father would sleep in the kitchen on the camp bed he'd brought back from the Western Desert; later I can remember changing beds with one or other of my parents - who never enjoyed sleeping in a double bed - so that someone could keep an eye on me. This was a great treat, as my own bed had a horsehair mattress of fairly unyielding discomfort, and I found their beds miraculously comfortable. Less yielding was the stone hot water bottle that my father liked - you could break a toe on it, or send it crashing through the floor to the flat below if you tried to kick it out of the bed. (I think that was probably an exaggeration, but it convinced me)
Another thing about Being Ill in those days was the fact that I seemed to spend interminable hours - days, even - in bed. You didn't get up until you were better in these days; I suppose the house was cold and there was no telly to seduce you, but it was a feature of recovery that when I did emerge into the family again my legs would be as wobbly as those of a new-born colt. I read hundreds of books - I clearly remember reading Edward Whymper's Scrambles amongst the Alps when I was eight, having run out of anything more suited to my own age group. Perhaps my progress in English was directly linked to all these shivery days in bed.
All this reminiscing is making me feel worse, but I have one last memory of a symptom which to this day tells me I'm under the weather: when I was ill, the toothpaste never tasted right. Does that ring any bells out there?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
A Burnt-out case
Another old, small paperback - and I've found that there are some of this edition of Graham Greene's A Burnt-out Case for sale on Amazon, though as it's only the 1980 edition it hardly counts, surely, as vintage? The novel, about a famous architect hiding from the world in a leper colony in Africa, was written in 1960, though it has that timeless quality of Greeneland, and, like the other books I've been re-reading, that same effortlessly elegant prose. The opening two sentences give a taste of what is to come:The cabin-passenger wrote in his diary a parody of Descartes: 'I feel discomfort, therefore I am alive,' then sat pen in hand with no more to record. The captain in a white soutane stood by the open windows of the saloon reading his breviary.
There you have it. The assumption that the reader will know the original of the parody, the nameless characters about whom we will gradually learn more, the Catholic priest captaining the boat promising that there will be Catholic guilt at some point. Querry, the passenger, doesn't in fact suffer from guilt - he has lost the ability to feel much about anything at all. Famous in his field, victim of a terrible attack of indifference, he arrives at the Congo leper village where the doctor diagnoses him as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper who has gone through the stage of mutilation and in whom the disease is no longer active.
A strange book. It depressed me when I read it in the 70s, though understanding has grown in the intervening years. The end comes with shocking banality - but is perhaps the only conclusion that would satisfy. I'm glad I read it again - I'd forgotten big chunks of it, and became immersed in the heat and difficulties of Querry's new life and the awfulness of the white community beyond the leproserie. And yes, it was immensely portable.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Pay for Ning?
Darn. The other day I read that Ning networks will have to be paid for - you can read it for yourself here. Now I always wonder just how all these wonderfully useful sites actually make any money for their creators - how they even pay their way at all - though I know that advertising comes into it. But I'm sad about the Ning story simply because I've just created a new network for a small group doing distance learning for a module on reading the Bible. It's a closed network, so that I have to invite people to join it, and as such provides a safe space for homework, work in progress and discussion about difficulties and enthusiasms.
It is particularly important because the members of this group are scattered over such a wide area, with only two of them even in the same part of Argyll. It would be prohibitively expensive, not to say draining, to meet face-to-face as frequently as the course requires, and it is actually quite difficult to share relatively complex ideas over a telephone conference. The Ning network gives members a chance to experiment with, among other things, writing styles in preparation for the formal assignments which will have to be assessed, and it gave me as facilitator the opportunity to offer a bit of practical help on essay-writing. I have yet to try out the chat facility - haven't managed to coincide online with anyone yet - and would be interested to know if anyone out there has used it. Ideally, it'd be great to be able to be reading someone's stuff and commenting on it live.
I know there are other options for this kind of thing, but I plumped for a Ning because it is relatively unthreatening for people who tend not to use any kind of social networking sites. It doesn't really work for the one person on the course who doesn't yet have broadband, and there are still hiccups with people learning where to put comments, but I was optimistic - until now. The participants on the course have already paid to be on it, and the budget is small. Is it only a matter of time before we have to pay for all our social networking?
It is particularly important because the members of this group are scattered over such a wide area, with only two of them even in the same part of Argyll. It would be prohibitively expensive, not to say draining, to meet face-to-face as frequently as the course requires, and it is actually quite difficult to share relatively complex ideas over a telephone conference. The Ning network gives members a chance to experiment with, among other things, writing styles in preparation for the formal assignments which will have to be assessed, and it gave me as facilitator the opportunity to offer a bit of practical help on essay-writing. I have yet to try out the chat facility - haven't managed to coincide online with anyone yet - and would be interested to know if anyone out there has used it. Ideally, it'd be great to be able to be reading someone's stuff and commenting on it live.
I know there are other options for this kind of thing, but I plumped for a Ning because it is relatively unthreatening for people who tend not to use any kind of social networking sites. It doesn't really work for the one person on the course who doesn't yet have broadband, and there are still hiccups with people learning where to put comments, but I was optimistic - until now. The participants on the course have already paid to be on it, and the budget is small. Is it only a matter of time before we have to pay for all our social networking?
Friday, April 16, 2010
Unregistered at last
It's official. I am no longer eligible to teach in Scotland - I have the letter telling me so. I thought it was time to give up any pretence that I might one day feel the need to re-enter the classroom; in the past four-and-a-half years I have not been even remotely tempted. I stayed registered during that period, I suppose, in case boredom or penury should prove too much for me in my retired state, but it has not been so. The letter from the GTC thanked me for the time I have given to the teaching profession in Scotland, and wished me well for the future.
I take heart from their assurance that I still have a future, but today I was reflecting on the past, for the setting up of the GTC coincided with my time at university, when I was already sure that I would teach. Before that, I remember the dreaded "non-certificated" teachers who occasionally made an appearance in our classrooms, usually in times of prolonged staff illness. They never lasted, and even as teenagers we knew they didn't quite cut it. The GTC, I reckon, has been A Good Thing. And like all good things, for me, it has come to an end.
I take heart from their assurance that I still have a future, but today I was reflecting on the past, for the setting up of the GTC coincided with my time at university, when I was already sure that I would teach. Before that, I remember the dreaded "non-certificated" teachers who occasionally made an appearance in our classrooms, usually in times of prolonged staff illness. They never lasted, and even as teenagers we knew they didn't quite cut it. The GTC, I reckon, has been A Good Thing. And like all good things, for me, it has come to an end.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Laughter, pure and simple
Just had to share this on somewhere I could find it again - the most wonderful example of total mirth and involvement. I don't know what Catriona was laughing at - though it sounds as if it's her Dad - but it makes me giggle just watching her.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Conservative anarchy?
Well what was all that about? David Cameron's launch of the Tory Manifesto left me visualising the kind of mayhem that might result from his notion of handing power to the people. What people, pray? I thought that was what democracy was about - we elect people to do all that stuff for us, pay them to take the time to do it full-time and not fit it in on a night when there's nothing to watch on the telly. What kind of people would be manning the barricades over the local post offices or starting up their own schools?
Ok, I sound scathing about ... well, people. And politicians are people too, but the point is that they do work at it full-time, give it their full attention for the span of a parliament. If they're rubbish, we don't vote them in again, and it looks as if their party gets rid of them if they're caught being naughty. And of course, if they use Twitter unwisely they don't even get the chance. Maybe the Tories want to do without Parliament at all, then? Return to village councils and local barons? Wicked sheriffs? Maybe not.
But it looks like a recipe for anarchy to me.
Ok, I sound scathing about ... well, people. And politicians are people too, but the point is that they do work at it full-time, give it their full attention for the span of a parliament. If they're rubbish, we don't vote them in again, and it looks as if their party gets rid of them if they're caught being naughty. And of course, if they use Twitter unwisely they don't even get the chance. Maybe the Tories want to do without Parliament at all, then? Return to village councils and local barons? Wicked sheriffs? Maybe not.
But it looks like a recipe for anarchy to me.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Journey into an old friend
I've just been re-reading Eric Ambler's thriller Journey into Fear, not in the Penguin Modern Classics edition shown here but in a Fontana edition of 1973. The book itself was first published in 1940, and there are reminders of its vintage in the length of the sentences, the complexity of the syntax, and the fact that the hero and his nemesis discuss philosophy and ancient history at length over a meal rather than have the content of their conversation swiftly summarised by the author. Graham Greene - and I'm now re-reading one of his novels - described Ambler as "unquestionably our best thriller writer", and there are similarities in style between the two writers' work. I found myself vaguely recalling that so-and-so was found dead, and that thingummyjig turned out to be a baddie, but these memories served only to sharpen the suspense, which is that of the skilfully-handled closed environment (in this case a steamer) in which the protagonists must constantly interact.But the thing that struck me most forcibly while I was reading was the size of the book. Remember when paperbacks used to be small? Little, lightweight things that could be stuffed in a pocket? That you could read in bed without fearing a broken nose should you fall asleep while reading? When did they become large-format tomes with lots of white space and big print? I found I really enjoyed this foray into the past: the yellowing pages and 9-point text seemed suited to the slightly formal prose and the menace of travel in the early part of the war, and I remember my mother telling me that she used to send paperbacks out to Egypt for my father to read. I can imagine a small Fontana book pulled from a battledress pocket in a desert bivvie - but not a fat, glossy, self-satisfied modern edition.
More blasts from the literary past to follow ...
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