Unchanging Times

Tags

Ecclesiastes

In the same day I have read these words:

Everything that happens has happened before;
nothing is new, nothing under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

and then these:

“… when lawyers or hussars who have no special knowledge are appointed Directors of banks or companies and receive gigantic salaries, I conclude that these salaries are not fixed by the law of supply and demand but by personal influence.  This is an abuse important in itself, which has a bad effect on the state …”

Karenin in Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Craft

Tags

Religion

Last week I tootled off to the Clergy Conference in leafy Perthshire, with the chickens who provide us with eggs for breakfast.

A lot of things have changed since I first went to Kinnoul some 26 years ago, and not just at Kinnoul, back then they had pigs too, pigs from which they made their own delicious ham.  I well remember the first lunch I had inside that monastery, the vegetarian in our midst asked for the vegetarian option and was pointed towards the ham salad!  Now they have good vegetarian options, the stuffed peppers were delicious, and even with the new policy of puddings only on Wednesdays and Sundays we were well fed in body.  We were also well fed spiritually with meaningful offices and well fed cerebrally by Akma.

Akma, (he is currently writing a commentary on James, don’t you know – well you most certainly would know had you been at the conference it became a running joke) was leading our conference.  I like the fact that he calls hermeneutics a craft for most certainly that is what it is and it was good to have the grey matter jump started before once more this week I have to think about writing sermons for the first time since Holy Week.

Anyone who knows me and certainly anyone who has heard me preaching during Holy Week will know that I have a soft spot for Judas, little did I realise as I started to listen to how we might better engage with our craft that the Pharisees would become a new focus for righting the injustice that years have heaped upon them.  Of course Nicodemus has always been the ‘good Pharisees’ however it was like scales falling from my eyes when the esoteric way I had accepted the mud that countless before me had made stick to the Pharisees, adding some of my own wet earth along the way, turned to the exoteric realisation that the Pharisees time and time again were the example of piety that Jesus pointed his hearers to.  Yes they had faults, but also they had much to commend them, expect to hear a different slant from me in future when Pharisees are mentioned.

As I pondered on all we had heard and on conversations I had, had with my peers; as thoughts and ideas developed I was struck by another craft which as leaders of God’s people we should posses.  The craft and wisdom of knowing how, when and what to change and how, when and what to leave.  The craft of knowing when to challenge and when to gently encourage.  For years stone angels in a position of prayer have been echoing the prayers of heaven over the people of God drawn to worship in the church attached to the monastery.  They have remained unchanged, constant in their adoration, in their protection, in their example.

We are called, not to be crafty people, but to be people who in God’s wisdom craft our words and actions in ways that help, and when needed challenge, God’s people.  To help growth and healthy living, we need to master the craft of recognising when it is that we – as individuals and a church – need to change rather than attempting to change God to better fit our ideals.  The craft of recognising the constancy of God amist the human made ideas that have been imposed upon us by past generations, for God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Arcing the Spark – Cells and Creation

Tags

Arcing the Spark

This picture is of a tile designed by Marian de Caleuve, and made by Della Robbia Pottery in Birkenhead between 1900 and 1905.  It is called ‘The First Day of Creation’.

The First Day of Creation

‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.’  Genesis 1:1-5

Those that know me know I like angels and also know that if I could I would have my home filled with everything Arts and Crafts.  So it is maybe no surprise that for me this tile is a joy to behold.  However as just about everything nowadays is arcing the spark for me, it is that spark that is the reason for posting this picture today.  Now I don’t know if this was what Marian de Caleuve intended, but when I look upon that angel holding that sphere I see it dividing just like that now oh so familiar picture of cell division.

The term ‘cell’ was first coined by Robert Hooke in his 1665 book ‘Micrographia’ because the walls of a cell reminded him of Monks cells.  ‘Micrographia’ was the first scientific best seller and made people wonder at the detailed illustrations drawn from looking through a microscope, a new world was being seen for the first time and a doorway to new discoveries and wonders was flung open.  However with those discoveries barriers were built between those who believed that God made the world and those that believed that the world had evolved through the wonder and chance.

In this tile however I see the arcing spark, not between news and religion, but between the creationist and the evolutionist, surely they can together look at this tile and see creation.

Art, religion, science all coming together, it makes my heart sing.

Arcing the Spark – Yorkshire Sparrows

Tags

Arcing the Spark

The people of Yorkshire are again waking up to a media circus on their doorstep, and like the story of Peter Sutcliffe it isn’t a good news story, it is one that strikes terror into their hearts.  The events are still unfolding, but the lack of respect for people and life is again being plastered over the news.  No I am not talking about the suspected killer, but the victims.

These women led life’s most of us can not even begin to imagine, lives which daily made them victims and targets, but did they deserve what is now happening to their memories?  No.

These women have been murdered, society failed them in life and now, now when the perpetrator of these crimes might be in custody it splashes banner headlines about their lives, uses mournful pictures to underline the picture they wish to paint, and society fails them again.  Okay they might as one paper says have lived chaotic lives, but that is no justification for what has happened to them, and certainly is no reason to make them and their families suffer even more.  I have no doubt this will go on, every inch of their lives will be turned upside down, I am also sure that it will only be the supposedly bad stuff that will be plastered across newspapers and TV reports.  Okay their lives might not have been perfect but whose is?   Their lifestyle might be the reason that they were targeted, but to make the whole story about their lives, to dehumanize them in death as they were by their clients in life, is that acceptable?  Would you want as your eulogy a catalogue of your failings?

Susan, Shelley and Suzanne, where people, people whose lives were cut short, people who despite the mess their lives had become, lived and laughed and most possibly wished for better lives.  They have names, they were women, they were far more than that prostitute or that addict.  They were and are more precious than sparrows, precious enough that God knew the very number of hairs on their head, so precious that God walked beside them, even when everyone else had left them to travel alone.  God cried with them, as they suffered, knew their inner most pain, anxieties and concerns, God knew the desperation which drove them into the lives they led and loved them all the while.  God did not abandon them, daily God was there loving and upholding them.  Society, on the other hand turned its back to them in life and now in their death points the finger, this morning I can’t help feeling that Susan, Shelley and Suzanne are in a far better place, away from all this hypocrisy.

Arcing the Spark

Tags

Religious Thoughts

I have been away, firstly on holiday which I post dated some blogs about while I have been away again, this time work related at a Preaching Conference called ‘Breaking News’.  I for one often shy away from preaching the news, it can be a risky business, sometimes I take those risks but maybe too often I play it safe.

The conference, probably like most sermons had some low point, however the high points transported, challenged and encouraged me beyond my expectations and the later far outweighed the former.  It might not be a surprise to learn that one of the challenges I am going to engage with is trying to pay more attention to the news in my preaching.  Mother Ruth discovered a great piece of news during one of the sessions which I can hardly ignore as we have a baptism at All Saints on Sunday, but I will leave her to tell you about that should she choose to do so.

Another gauntlet that I have decided to take up, even though it wasn’t actually directly thrown down by anyone, is to use my blog to engage more in ‘Arcing the Spark’.  Making the connections between the sparks that resonate in the Word of God around us – not only in the news, but also in creation, events, happenings, peoples, films, music etc – with the sparks that resonate with the Word of God in scripture, drawing attention to those incarnate and divine connections that surround us.  In what form those sparks with appear on here is yet uncertain – probably as jottings, musings, beginnings, almost certainly not finished, you might have to focus in the brightness of the spark yourselves.  The first one will appear sometime next week and I will try, although not promise, to do at least one such post a week.