Giving Thanks for Hobgoblins, Foul Fiends and Presbyterians

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John Bunyan, Religion

Okay so it wasn’t the first hymn that they had thought of but the family and friends of Dennis sung it with gusto at his funeral yesterday afternoon, well that was until they got to the final verse and ‘Hobgoblin nor foul fiend’.  You could hear the questioning in some voices, you could see the quizzical looks and I even heard a snigger.

I have issues with the way some hymn books and hymn book compilers change words.  Mainly this is because we happen to use a particularly awful hymn book in my two churches and I often struggle to even find particular hymns in it, for lots of the words have been changed.  Last Sunday was a perfect example:

Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost,
taught by thee, we covet most
of thy gifts at Pentecost,
holy, heavenly love.

has for some bizarre reasoning been changed to:-

Holy Spirit, gracious guest,
hear and grant our heart’s request
for that gift supreme and best:
holy heavenly love.

Christopher Wordsworth must be spinning in his grave.  Don’t get me wrong I don’t have a problem with modern language in hymns I just think that it should be left to modern hymns.  As long as theologically a hymn is sound I don’t see the point in changing thees and thous etc and especially if in the changing of them you then end up with what in many cases is not far short of a new hymn.  But I am in danger of now going into a rant and throwing manifold examples at you of these infractions so instead I will get back Bunyan’s hobgoblin.

This messing about with hymn words is no new phenomena – oh no – the Hobgoblin and his foul fiend, of whom we sung yesterday, were exiled from John Bunyan’s hymn by Rev Canon Percy Dearmer in 1906 for the English Hymnal.  The reason apparently being that ‘to include the hobgoblins would have been to ensure disaster’.  Now that has sadly meant, its successors and a number of other English language hymnals tend to use Dearmer’s words – Since, Lord, thou dost defend us with thy Spirit – to begin the last verse rather than – Hobgoblin nor foul fiend can daunt his spirit – and some others have demoted the hobgoblin to the less troublesome but more mischievous goblin.  (Bunyan must be joining Wordsworth in an eightsome reel.)  Yesterday, however, it was at the Crematorium that we sung the hymn and the hymn books which grace the crematorium book racks are those of the Church of Scotland and both hobgoblins and foul fiends are still well and truly in residence.  Yet I knew that there was a more recent version of the CoS hymnal, so it was with a degree of trepidation that I opened the music cupboard when I got back to the Rectory.  CH4 (pub 2005) delighted me when I discovered that the hobgoblins and foul fiends were still in tact, so it is with great joy that I give thanks for my Presbyterian cousins who have not been swayed by the whim of some English canon in Westminster, but have stood firm against such superstitious nonsense.

Never Ending Circles

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Books, Phil Rickman, Photography, Religion, The UK

In Poolewe there is a graveyard and as I am rather fond of graveyards we had to go and take a look.  Although it has been there for centuries it is also still in use today, this I like a lot.  Inscribing gravestones with a name and date came late to Poolewe – the earliest is dated 1839, before named gravestones became commonplace burial plots were reused the circle of life and death continued for generations, so it is impossible to know how many souls have been laid to rest there.  It is a place of serenity and calm, not far from the edge of Loch Ewe itself, with the mountains behind it and a river either side a pretty little setting set back from the modern road, but there is more to this than might at first meet the eye.

Mother Ruth had pointed me in the direction of Phil Rickman’s series of books which follow the exploits of Merrily Watkins, and as those of you who follow me on facebook will already know I was reading them while on holiday.  One of the books I read was ‘A Crown of Lights’, the story revolves around the site of a deconsecrated church which had been placed on the site of a pre-Christian ritual site and hence had an unusual circular graveyard.  Yes you’ve guessed it, this graveyard too is circular, and like the graveyard in A Crown of Lights it too is surround by a ring of trees and what is more it too I believe has pre-Christian history.  But I am jumping ahead slightly – or should that be back slightly – as before I talk about that a quick bio of the more recent past might be in order.  The ruins of a church is in the north-east segment of the burial ground and has a number of later enclosures built along one side.  This is not the original church which fell out of use during the Reformation, although it might have continued to be used as a private chapel.   It was rebuilt in the 17^th century and used for Episcopalian worship, but it is hard to know when Christian worship first took place on the site.

I was one of the final people who did what was known as ‘The Scottish Dimension’ – personally I think it is a great shame that it is no longer compulsory for those who come to the SEC from other shores but hey who am I to express such an opinion? – Any way, when I did it back in the 80′s part which I chose to do was to write a paper on Old Govan Parish in particular the change from a pre-Christian to a Christian site.  I was reminded forcibly of it when I saw this:

Most people who take the time to wander round that graveyard probably pass this stone whose markings can not be read by, it is not very tall and you might say that there is nothing particularly impressive about it.  Well I believe you would be wrong in that assumption for this is the typical shape of a Viking Hogback burial stone (there are some at Govan Old Parish) which rather than standing upright as this on is would be laid on top of a grave (or possibly a stone cut coffin) as the lid with the rounded surface facing outwards.  The Vikings were in Wester Ross in quite large numbers using its natural harbours to great effect as a base for their raids further south.  You don’t need to look too far in Wester Ross to find Viking place names, so it was no surprise to me to see what I think could very probably also be a sign of their burials.  While I am speculating I think that this too might very well be a hog back this time upside down with the characteristic hump buried in the grass.

But there is more than this speculation than the circular nature of the graveyard and a couple of possible hogbacks, there is also the Font Stone that lies north-west of the chapel, partly buried in turf.

Now it might be called a font stone but it is the smallest font I have ever seen and I think local folklore gives us a clue to what it was originally.  In the Highlands, and indeed in Argyll and the Isles, hollowed cup stones were associated with sacred water, used for coronations like at Dunadd in Kilmartin Glen, for the blessing of people on the verge of major milestones of their lives, for catching the full moon at the solace, or a sunbeam at mid summer, and the water that was in these cups were often said to have healing powers.  Local folklore says that the water in the stone at Poolewe cures warts and locally it is known as the Wart Stone.  Well to me it sounds much more likely that this stone has a pre-Christian history as a Pictish cup stone, that in centuries past the water contained in it was as likely to have blessed a young woman so that she might be like some mother earth god and bear strong healthy sons as blessing a new-born in the name of the Trinity.  Now before you think I am getting too fanciful then take a look at this:

This is a Pictish stone which would have once stood upright but has later been used as a burial slab.  Some of the original carving can still be seen, it is not the usual Pictish symbols that are commonly seen but rather geometrical ones.

There is a weathered crescent and v-rod symbol decorated with a curvilinear design and an arrangement of dots.  Pictish stones are traditionally found in northern and eastern parts of Scotland.  The stone at Poolewe is one of only two symbol scones discovered on the west coast of mainland Scotland.  Taking into account this rare stone being here says to me that this must have been an important site for the Picts.

A place of rest for centuries, a place of circles upon circles and I am left thinking of those who rest there, be they Viking, Pict or Christian, in the words of a Roman gravestone:

May your bones rest quietly
and may the earth lie lightly on you.

Christ’s Maundy Thursday Victory

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Religion

100+ people, most for the first time, sat or knelt in silence – you could’ve heard a pin drop between the odd sniffle as they kept the vigil.

Okay they didn’t keep it for long but they kept it Baptist, CofS, Pisky, RC and Coptic, side by side in the near dark.

Most appeared to leave reluctantly not realising they could have stayed, but I felt for the first time it didn’t matter that they left, Christ might have been arrested but he had won.

They left in muted silence, some with reddened eyes, some with hesitate smiles, some with warm hugs and whispered shaloms, some with downcast faces, some fidgeting with the order of service, some with mouthed thank yous, all with a gentle presence surrounding and seeping from them.

For the first time ever I felt that the Church could be one.

I know it wont last but tonight I consider myself blessed indeed, tonight I glimpsed paradise.

Clearing Out The Gutters For Lent

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4 Maccabees, Liturgical Seasons, Photography, Religion

It is recommended, especially if you live near trees, that you should clean out your gutters after the leaves have fallen so that they don’t block your gutters and cause water ingress into your home.  Well in this country it is recommended, but in Norway the story is somewhat different.

This house is part of the Romsdal Folk Museum in Romsdal, Norway.  The Norwegians were onto the whole idea of covering your roof with grass instead of tiles long before it became the thing of the eco-set, this home missed one of the vital necessities for a grass roof, that is the need to occasionally put a sheep or goat up on it for never mind leaves in the gutters, you don’t want a tree growing out of your roof for pretty soon the roots will work their way into your home and your home will be no more.

Just as pleasure and pain are two plants growing from the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these plants, each of which the master cultivator, reason, weeds and prunes and ties up and waters and thoroughly irrigates, and so tames the jungle of habits and emotions.

4 Maccabees 1:28-29

Taming the jungle of our habits and emotions that sounds very Lenten indeed doesn’t it – maybe it is time to check the roof.

Holding Together by Christopher Cocksworth

Tags

Books, Religion

I didn’t want to blog about this book until after the Clergy Book Group today when we were discussing it but now as it has happened I will.

The book has a sub-title Gospel, Church and Spirit – the essentials of Christian identity, and clear on the very first page of the preface are these words:

The aim of this book is not in any way to go beyond the simple gospel of salvation and the conviction that the Bible is the inspired word of God that I learnt from my spiritual fathers and mothers.  It is to go deeper into the scriptural gospel, to mine more of its depths, to receive more fully of its fullness, to grasp more of what it means to be a gospel person, an evangelical.

I always think it is good when a theological author nails their colours to the mast right at the beginning, at least then you know what position they are writing from, and Christopher Cocksworth despite the grand title of Holding Together – the evangelical and Catholic traditions within the Church – in my view fails as there remains throughout the book, the undercurrent of the evangelical way is the right way.

That being said doesn’t however take away from some of the very good stuff inside the book.  I would be interested to know just what an evangelical thinks about the chapter on Mary, are you one have you read it?  The chapters on Touching Grace and Breaking Bread I enjoyed and were well described by one person in the group as generous and I think his own brief sentence when introducing the discussion between formalised liturgy and freedom beyond any fixed liturgy expresses this tension well ‘God’s immediacy is mediated.’ p158.  The chapter Making Disciples is also worth delving into, and on the whole that is what I feel about this book, there are bits worth delving into but as a whole I found it stodgy and unreasoned, more like a collection of ideas for several books rather than a completed work in itself, but then as I said at the group I don’t think I was his target reader.

{It is worth saying, especially if you are considering buying the book and wanting other views before parting with your £16.99 – I got mine for 12p+p&p – that while some shared the views expressed above others didn’t, one person (who arrived late and will remain nameless was very enthusiastic about it all, although he hadn’t finished it!).  One person found it very Church of England, that totally escaped me and still does.  I along with at least two others of the group would have probably not got past the first chapter if it hadn’t been for the discipline of it being the Book Group book.}

Counting Strands

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Religion

Today at the Diocesan Office the Revd Chris Kellock was talking about missional leadership, the strand of the Diocesan Growth Strategy (although I am unclear as to whether we are supposed to have stopped calling it that now) that has had a lot of people scratching their head over what it means.  I thought I had an inkling and it turns out I was just about right nevertheless it was a valuable time and I still gleaned some very good stuff from the day.  Back in the Rectory it got me to thinking about the other strands of the Diocesan Growth Strategy.

Now the DGS shouldn’t be about box ticking but as a little exercise to amuse myself I had a look through this week’s diary to see how, having spent the day on missional leadership, if the other 5 strands were represented this week.  Prayer and spirituality; learning and discipleship; numerical growth, welcome and integration; children and young people were all encompassed there in various guises, along with an opportunity to put some missional leadership stuff into practise at tonight’s Vestry meeting, the one that was lacking was imaginative outreach into the local community.  Now I am not scared of some imaginative outreach and there are those who will tell you that I have got them doing some very imaginative outreach that they never would have dreamed of ever doing themselves.  So I delved back and forward in my diary but still no.  Yes there is outreach into the local community but it is hardly what I would class as imaginative, more the standard fare of Christian outreach, so I am left with a question to work on.  Has my outreach imagination been tempered or stopped working, or is there something else at play?

Of course it should be underlined that congregations are only being asked to concentrate on one or two strands, and no one person or congregation can really expect to have comprehensively covered all strands in any given week.  On the other hand maybe tonight’s Vestry meeting will fling up something that can be filed under the imaginative outreach into the local community arm and I can get to shout ‘bingo!’.

The Nail by Stephen Cottrell

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Books, Religion, Stephen Cottrell

Following on from yesterday afternoon’s post I want to share with you another birthday present which gets top marks, Bishop Stephen Cottrell’s new book, The Nail.  With Lent fast approaching this would make a good book to use as personal study during Lent and I am sure that there are clergy out there who will be also using it as at least the basis for Holy Week.

The book comes in three parts and there are suggestions for how to use it for a Lent course.  The first part (this is the part suggested for a Lent study Group) looks at six of the characters who are part of the Passion story – namely Peter, the centurion, Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, Judas and Mary Magdalene) and how they played a role in hammering in the nails.  The second part is looks at the events from Pilate’s wife dream and fears of further dreaming.  While the final chapter and part asks the question – Will you let Jesus forgive you?  A question which is well worth contemplating even if you don’t read the book, but my recommendation is that you read the book.

Feeding Mission

Tags

Photography, Religion, The UK

On our last visit to Argyll we actually stopped at a sweet little beach which in the past I had always driven past.  It turned out that although the beach itself is small the shellfish which live around it would appear to be very large if the shells of their deceased counterparts are to be believed.

As it is hard to see size in photographs so we put the cottage keys beside these clam shells:

while this picture shows that even Hubby’s giant hands could hardly hold this oyster shell:

Why this particular beach should have such a large amount of very large shells of all kinds I have no idea there is no industry near-by that might have unwittingly leached something out into the sea and caused this growth, neither is it one of the many areas in Argyll were there is fish farming going on, giving these shellfish an abundance of extra readily available food.  Nor was it just the clams and oysters that were large, there where mussels, welks and limpets all of bigger than usual size.

I was reminded of this beach today when I was thinking about church growth.  Sometimes it can be very difficult to know why any particular church does grow or another church doesn’t grow having ticked all the same mission boxes.  Church growth doesn’t automatically come about by following some formula or another, it is more about faithfully being the people of God in a living community.  That is what helps members of any congregation to grow as individuals, that is what becomes attractive to those who make that first tentative steps inside any church, that is the firm foundations on which a church can grow without danger of collapse.  That isn’t a formula that who we are by our baptism into being part of the body of Christ.  One thing I am certain of is that nutrients are needed, like any other living thing, congregations need to be fed if they are to grow.  I think mission will have an uphill struggle when it is taken as being something separate from the ongoing life of a congregation, I think it falters when it is used as a sticking plaster, and I think it out-and-out fails if it is only about invitation and not about nurture, nurture of those finding faith for the first time and nurture for those who have held their faith for many years.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’  A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.

John 21:15-17

But Zadok Was AWOL

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Religion

Yesterday, a day early, All Saints marked the accession 60 years ago today of Queen Elizabeth II by crowning, robing, and generally kiting out king Neill.  His big brother wasn’t too keen about the whole having to pay homage to his younger sibling and was somewhat relieved when Neil’s reign was even shorter than that of Lady Jane Grey.  Of course you don’t need me to tell you it took over a year before the Queen’s coronation service actually took place, the day when one of the richest people in the world is handed a Bible and told:-

… the most valuable thing this world affords …

Not having access to the Crown Jewels and not being able to buy an orb anywhere I had to set about making one.

It turned out satisfactory enough and fairly illustrated the words which are said when the orb is presented:-

Receive this orb set under the cross and remember that the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Christ.

Talking with some members of the congregation after the service we did wonder how the next coronation might change.  There has been much talk in the past about Prince Charles wanting to be defender of faiths, rather than defender of the faith, words which are spoken at the handing over of the ring and also as part of the oath.  However throughout the service there are constant references to the Kingship of Christ, to things only being able to done with God’s help, and probably most controversial of all the instruction to the new monarch to protect the Holy Church of God as the sword of state is presented.  Sixty years is a long time but as a British monarch is reminded when the crown is placed upon their head the time will come when their reign will end, but Christ’s reign is an everlasting kingdom and it endures forever.  I  don’t expect that we will see a new monarch any time soon, especially if our current queen has her mother’s long-lived genes, but I can see much debate and discussion at some point in the future when a new British monarchs’ coronation is being planned.

Oh and the title of this post, well the one thing that was missing this morning I hadn’t let the organist in on what I was up to and primed her to play Zadok the Priest as we led the newly crowned king to be enthroned with his somewhat surprised newbie bishop – now there was an opportunity missed.

Heading South and Thinking Mission

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Religion

South of the river that is, I do find it strange how the river Clyde divides not only the city of Glasgow itself but also it’s inhabitants.

Having exhausted all hospitals north of the river today I ventured south to the Southern General for a MRI scan.  While waiting for my appointment I got chatting to the staff and asked why I had ended up at the Southern for the scan when an earlier appointment which had been cancelled was at the Western Infirmary, well it transpires it was because I said I didn’t mind crossing the great divide – the Clyde.  There are those who live on the north of the Clyde that view going to the south-side as, as alien as travelling to Mars.  (I can honestly say that it really doesn’t bother me, maybe because I have lived both sides of the river.)  Any way apparently the waiting list for MRI scans at the hospitals north of the river are longer than those on the south because those who live on the north seem to be reluctant to travel for hospital care, I am sure that part of this is down to limitations of the public transport system when a river and its limited crossings are introduced, however seeing that they speak the same language, still drive on the left, there is no need for inoculations, passports or a visa, I didn’t think that venturing the short distance under the river to its southern shores was particularly adventurous so had raised no objections to going to the Southern and hence had got an earlier appointment than I would have had I said I wouldn’t cross the river.

As I was pushed into the chamber loaded into the torpedo tube; for this time as I had the use of my eyes it not only felt like it (the radiotherapy) but looked like it; I got to thinking.  I had hoped to get a nap, but actually it is very noisy and that wasn’t going to be on the cards, so instead I thought.  For many stepping over the church thresh hold is as alien a journey as a north of Glasgow resident going to the south-side.  It is somewhere they don’t venture and have strange impressions of,  what is more even if they do through the doors they will discover somewhere that has a different culture, uses strange words, has peculiar rituals, and sometimes even requires some kind of pre-existing affiliation.  We like to think that we, that is churches, are welcoming communities doors flung wide open for anyone, I can assure you that the people on the south-side of Glasgow think that they are welcoming to those from the north.  It isn’t about what we think we are about and doing, it is about how others perceive us.

We can have the best possible welcome for those who come through our doors, what we mustn’t forget is those who haven’t yet taking that small step which is a giant leap.  Those who because of things that have been said by those inside the church – clerics and laity alike – have perceptions that the church wouldn’t welcome them, doesn’t want to include them and would even slam the door in their face.  For some out there the church is far more threatening and dangerous than the south-side of Glasgow until we grasp and wrestle with that we will still only be playing with the tip of the mission iceberg.

Tree of Life

Tags

Art, Photography, Religion

The Youth Discussion Group at All Saints have been hard at work producing a mural for the wall of the meeting room this is the finished result.

A Question That Demands Attention

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Books, David F Ford, Proverbs, Religion

Come, eat my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight
Proverbs 9:5-6

The cries of wisdom are meant to stimulate us to cry out for her too.  If nothing else we desire can compare with her, then we need to relate our desire for wisdom to our other desires.  In the midst of all the cries – longings, appeals, and demands that come from within us and from all around us – how are we to shape a wise life?

I don’t usual comment on books before I have finished them but this time I am going to.  Every time I pick up my Kindle to read some more of David F Ford’s book The Future of Christian Theology I find myself drawn back to the section above from page 2.  Sometimes I don’t even get any further than contemplating that question.

How are we to shape a wise life?