Today I’ll be leading a Quiet Day for the Mothers Union, on the theme of “Answering God’s Call”.
I’m not certain whether the MU operates within ECUSA,- certainly it has active membership in most parts of the Anglican Communion, but if you don’t know it by name, you’re bound to have encountered a similar body of wonderful church ladies…Ladies who make tea and chocolate cake, ladies who have served their time as PCC secretaries, doyennes of the flower rota, choristers and Sunday school teachers. In the UK, the membership now is inclined to be elderly, though the international profile is rather more glamorous,- and even here the MU surprises and delights by running projects like the Debt Counselling Service and a holiday caravan scheme for struggling families, and oversees the creche at many prisons.
Our own MU at St Mary’s was responsible for the original foundation of my beloved Little Fishes, and provides mind-blowing teas each month for OpenHouse. They are a delightful band of allies, ladies whom I can always ask for prayer without any self consciousness or anxiety.
So, it was rather a privilege to be invited to give something back, in the form of their annual Quiet Day…open to members from all the parishes of the deanery.
It’s also an awesome responsibility….and, inevitably, I’d delayed preparation until the 11th hour, if not later.
Learning point number 1: you will feel better about presenting material in this sort of context if you’ve prayed it through for longer than a weekend plus 2 days!
Learning point number 2: God will probably use the experience to “grow” you in some new ways,- and this may not always be comfortable
Learning point number 3 (as the clouds gather): it is rash to rely on good weather in the UK, specially if the recent weather has consisted of unclouded sunshine (except, that is, for the torrential downpour that struck just before OpenHouse on Sunday, and kept most sensible families at home)…Just because the venue has lovely gardens, it doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone will be able to use them
Learning point number 4 (this should have been number 1, but I’m inclined to be slow on the uptake sometimes): whatever thoughts and words I offer, their only purpose is to encourage and facilitate the thoughts and prayers of those attending. It is so emphatically not about me, perhaps I should just cease wittering and get on with it.
In the preparation, I’ve been hugely grateful that the RCL provided such amazingly relevant readings, and the Ordinary Time reflections were so apposite and helpful. Pals, - I owe you a drink one day!
Time to go now. I’ll see you later, and maybe say something of my thoughts on the topic itself- but let me leave you with one of my very favourite quotes on vocation, some words of Rowan Williams which I carried around in my heart as the clearest expression of reality while I struggled to evade, and then to absorb, my own call to ordination
"Vocation has to do with saving your soul – not by acquiring a secure position of holiness but by learning to shed the unreality that suffocates the life of the soul…
Vocation is, you could say, what’s left when all the games have stopped”
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire!
I found this last year,- and rather stupidly didn't keep track of where (so many apologies if I'm infringing your copyright). It rather says it all about St M's, though in fact there was quite a bit of movement about the place this morning,- and with OpenHouse this afternoon, who knows?“Dutifully we fill the pews
Hushed by the organ’s lull
Then animatedly share our news
Before the preacher’s entry
We chase the dust
From nooks and crannies
Do the flowers, ring the bell
Welcome strangers,
Transport grannies
Bear banners on special occasions.
Special Occasions?
Is this one today
With this and that
And so much more
We had forgotten
That flames
Might leap up overhead
And whirlwinds
Lift us off the floor.
Come Holy Spirit, come!
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Costing the earth
Sunday edit
Oh dear. Apologies to my readers! Mumcat, (who is clearly NOT an N in Myers Briggs terms, in that she doesn't just assume on the basis of "A" that "Z" will eventually follow) read all the small print at snopes and discovered that "From a practical standpoint, the petition reproduced at the head of this page is not now valid in that the e-mail address supplied is no longer collecting or forwarding copies. The Pascua Lama project remains an issue of ongoing concern, however, and interested parties can find updated information on the subject (and a list of government and business officials to contact) at the Mining Watch Canada web site."
If you feel so moved, please do look at that and do whatever feels appropriate, but dont worry to email me for the original petition....How sad that through inadvertently wasting people's time, this campaign may actually have been counter-productive in inducing "pollution fatigue". I do hope it hasn't for you, in any case, I make no apology for airing the issue...and feel that prayer is probably more necessary than ever!
Please do pray for those whom the project threatens, and for a transformation of our attitudes to the fragile resources of the planet before it's too late.
In the valley de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from rivers, fed
by two glaciers. Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought
for it. Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they
provide the second largest source of income for the area. Under the
glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get
at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something
never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make two huge holes,
each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's
rubbish tip. The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick
Gold.
The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members
is George Bush Senior. The Chilean Government has approved the project to
start this year, 2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet is that the
farmers have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers,
they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will
permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human
or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in
the extraction process. Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the
multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is.
They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.
The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been
forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.
Their only hope now of putting brakes put on this project is to get help
from international justice. The world must know what is happening in Chile.
the only place to start changing the world is from here.
The online petition reads thus:
No to Pacua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the
Chilean-Argentinian frontier. We ask the Chilean Government not to authorise the Pacua
Lama, to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the purity of the water of the San
Felix Valley and El Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the
region of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole
population of the region.
Oh dear. Apologies to my readers! Mumcat, (who is clearly NOT an N in Myers Briggs terms, in that she doesn't just assume on the basis of "A" that "Z" will eventually follow) read all the small print at snopes and discovered that "From a practical standpoint, the petition reproduced at the head of this page is not now valid in that the e-mail address supplied is no longer collecting or forwarding copies. The Pascua Lama project remains an issue of ongoing concern, however, and interested parties can find updated information on the subject (and a list of government and business officials to contact) at the Mining Watch Canada web site."
If you feel so moved, please do look at that and do whatever feels appropriate, but dont worry to email me for the original petition....How sad that through inadvertently wasting people's time, this campaign may actually have been counter-productive in inducing "pollution fatigue". I do hope it hasn't for you, in any case, I make no apology for airing the issue...and feel that prayer is probably more necessary than ever!
Please do pray for those whom the project threatens, and for a transformation of our attitudes to the fragile resources of the planet before it's too late.
In the valley de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from rivers, fed
by two glaciers. Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought
for it. Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they
provide the second largest source of income for the area. Under the
glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get
at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something
never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make two huge holes,
each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's
rubbish tip. The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick
Gold.
The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members
is George Bush Senior. The Chilean Government has approved the project to
start this year, 2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet is that the
farmers have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers,
they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will
permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human
or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in
the extraction process. Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the
multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is.
They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.
The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been
forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.
Their only hope now of putting brakes put on this project is to get help
from international justice. The world must know what is happening in Chile.
the only place to start changing the world is from here.
The online petition reads thus:
No to Pacua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the
Chilean-Argentinian frontier. We ask the Chilean Government not to authorise the Pacua
Lama, to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the purity of the water of the San
Felix Valley and El Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the
region of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole
population of the region.
You're not going to believe this...
but I have just completed my sermon for tomorrow Evening. Miracles do happen! Mind you, I still have to sort out all the powerpoint material for OpenHouse tomorrow, and source some exciting Pentecost images (the best thing I could find on the web is here You click on the photo to make things happen...but it depends on internet access, which the church just doesn't have. Do have a look anyway, though). Meanwhile, though, writing this sermon was personally quite challenging, and as I can confidently expect a congregation of up to 12 at Evensong I'm going to be very brave and post it here, not because I think it's amazingly good, but because you are the community where I look for accountability.
Sermon for Pentecost: 4th June 2006.
Ezekiel 36 22-28; Acts 2 22-38
“I will give you a new heart…I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”
I was just 7 when Christian Barnard carried out the first heart transplant but I can still remember the huge excitement that the surgery generated. It seemed unimaginable, that the body could survive such a major invasion, could deal with the disruption of a total shutdown of the normal systems and actually, incredibly, emerge stronger and healthier afterwards...
Today apparently at least 300 heart transplants are carried out in the UK each year. If all goes well, the recipients should then be indistinguishable from the mass of humanity around them,- but they are often quoted saying, in various ways
“This surgery has changed my life…now I can live life to the full again.”
For long centuries, the constant beating of the heart has represented life itself, till it has become symbolic of a person’s character. Are you soft hearted? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? Is your heart warm or cold? We don’t even think about the physical reality that lies behind these everyday expressions, and certainly dramatic surgical intervention is something that Ezekiel and his Old Testament audience would never have dreamed of. Nonetheless, Ezekiel speaks the same language as those transplant patients.
“I will give you a new heart…”
A whole new heart….and one that is more healthy than its predecessor…
A change of heart that leads to a change of life…a fuller life than ever before.
Impossible? No,- with God nothing’s impossible.
To read our two passages in parallel as we have tonight is to appreciate just how fully the coming of the Holy Spirit was prefigured in the writing of the Old Testament, for surely what we hear about in Acts is indeed a gathering of the nations…
Jews from all over the Roman Empire returning to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of Pentecost. I wonder what their expectations were…
A chance to catch up with family and friends? Perhaps?
The opportunity to worship God in his Temple? Of course
A time to celebrate his gift of the Torah,- and the day when Moses descended from the holy mountain, bearing those two stone tablets on which were enshrined the essential rules of God’s people?
Certainly.
A heart transplant?? No way!.
But as Peter stood up to speak, they must have guessed that they were looking at someone whose heart had been changed – right there before their eyes. Something had surely happened to transform the frightened, disheartened fisherman who’d been in hiding with his friends into this charismatic orator, addressing a crowd of thousands,- never mind his unexpected gift with languages.
Such was the power of the Holy Spirit, everything about him was different,- and we ourselves are heirs of that difference, since the same Spirit is available to us here and now. Each of us is called into that new kind of life, first at Baptism then again and again throughout our Christian life.
For us, God is both surgeon and donor. At Baptism, it is he, working through the priest as the representative of his Church, who offers us a new lease of spiritual life, the life that comes directly from him. It’s this life that Jesus won for us by his death on the cross. His death, leading to our life…. That's what we are baptised into.
If we call someone stony-hearted, we're recognising that in some ways they are less than human, because they seem untouched by the troubles and sufferings of the rest of the world. But when God offers us a new heart, a feeling "heart of flesh" that heart will be as full of love and concern as is His own. We will become the people whom, all along, he intended us to be. That sense lies, too, behind the promise to bring us into our own land, the place where we can truly be at home, fully ourselves. As Augustine says,God had made us for himself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in him….He is our homeland.
Of course, the most common problem in all transplant surgery is that of rejection. The body is simply unable to accept the new healthy heart and the other organs shut down in rebellion. I’d say that’s a familiar phenomenon in our spiritual lives too. When we look at ourselves, at the church, and the world, we see minimal evidence of the transformed lives our readings celebrate. We read about the contagious Christianity of the early Church with a mixture of incredulity and awe, and compare ourselves unfavourably. What’s gone wrong? Was the gift of the Spirit after all a one-off event,- necessary so that the Church might be born, but no longer in evidence today? I’m writing these words on Saturday, - and though I know we’ll pray earnestly tomorrow that the Spirit may come down upon us, I’m not altogether sure that I really expect something radical to happen.
Which, of course, makes me part of the problem.
The Holy Spirit is an enabler, and not a dictator.
If we are too frightened to open our hearts to her, she won’t force us to do so…and it seems to me that very often we are ruled by our fears. We understand, don’t we, that open-heart surgery is not something to undertake lightly.
Who knows where we’ll end up, or how different our lives may look if we let the Spirit in to our lives, as individuals and as a church. It’s scary stuff.
We might need to jettison things that we really value, might have to put our selves on the line…
Let’s just think about this for a minute.
Perhaps my old heart isn't that unhealthy after all…no transplants today, please. I’ll hang on and see if I recover by myself.
When it comes down to it, I’m not certain I actually want to change so much that I stick out from the crowd. Sure, I want to be transformed by the Spirit, but not so that I actually have to change my daily lifestyle, make sacrifices, whether of time, of money or of self-esteem,- take the initiative, repair damaged relationships,.
Deep down, I may not be sure that I can really trust the surgeon here,- and I don’t want to die on the table.
I suspect that I’m not alone in this kind of internal struggle, but I do realise that ultimately it’s a mug’s game. None of us can actually turn ourselves around to become the sort of shiny spiritual beings we long to be unless we offer the Holy Spirit a free hand in our lives. We can’t guarantee that we’ll emerge from the process with everything that we THINK we need preserved intact…but we can trust God to look after the essentials. After all, he loves us even more than we love ourselves,- and his vision for our lives is something wonderful beyond our wildest imaginings.
So,- what to do now?
The disciples spent time together in prayer, as they waited and longed for the Comforter, the one who would strengthen them for their mission to the world,- so prayer, honest, open prayer seems a good place for us to begin.
And while we pray, we might perhaps begin to experiment with trying to live transformed lives.
If we’re finding it hard to believe that God really is at work changing things where we are, then perhaps we might go looking for him out in the world. If we fear that he will drive us beyond our comfort zones, then stepping out in that direction might itself be a step towards meeting him. We may not feel as if we’ve been transformed, but if we begin to live that way the process may surprise us en route. After all, Jesus spent most of his time on the margins, mixing with people whom we might not normally choose to befriend. Perhaps he would like us to look for him there…or he might surprise us by standing waiting right on our own doorstep.
I honestly don’t know,- but I’d like the courage to explore.
So, it’s back to prayer. If we ask, God will give us a new heart so that we can recognise, welcome and love him in all people and in all places…
We may never share the dramatic heights of charismatic experience,- but the promise which God makes through Ezekiel holds good today. He offers us nothing less than his own Spirit of love, and invites us into a relationship with him, a relationship that can transform not just every aspect of our present reality, but which offers boundless possibilities for the future too.
“You shall be my people and I will be your God.”
“Lord, your summons echoes true if you but call my name
Let me come and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go
Where you love and healing show
So I’ll live and move and grow in you
And you in me.”
Amen.
Sermon for Pentecost: 4th June 2006.
Ezekiel 36 22-28; Acts 2 22-38
“I will give you a new heart…I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”
I was just 7 when Christian Barnard carried out the first heart transplant but I can still remember the huge excitement that the surgery generated. It seemed unimaginable, that the body could survive such a major invasion, could deal with the disruption of a total shutdown of the normal systems and actually, incredibly, emerge stronger and healthier afterwards...
Today apparently at least 300 heart transplants are carried out in the UK each year. If all goes well, the recipients should then be indistinguishable from the mass of humanity around them,- but they are often quoted saying, in various ways
“This surgery has changed my life…now I can live life to the full again.”
For long centuries, the constant beating of the heart has represented life itself, till it has become symbolic of a person’s character. Are you soft hearted? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? Is your heart warm or cold? We don’t even think about the physical reality that lies behind these everyday expressions, and certainly dramatic surgical intervention is something that Ezekiel and his Old Testament audience would never have dreamed of. Nonetheless, Ezekiel speaks the same language as those transplant patients.
“I will give you a new heart…”
A whole new heart….and one that is more healthy than its predecessor…
A change of heart that leads to a change of life…a fuller life than ever before.
Impossible? No,- with God nothing’s impossible.
To read our two passages in parallel as we have tonight is to appreciate just how fully the coming of the Holy Spirit was prefigured in the writing of the Old Testament, for surely what we hear about in Acts is indeed a gathering of the nations…
Jews from all over the Roman Empire returning to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of Pentecost. I wonder what their expectations were…
A chance to catch up with family and friends? Perhaps?
The opportunity to worship God in his Temple? Of course
A time to celebrate his gift of the Torah,- and the day when Moses descended from the holy mountain, bearing those two stone tablets on which were enshrined the essential rules of God’s people?
Certainly.
A heart transplant?? No way!.
But as Peter stood up to speak, they must have guessed that they were looking at someone whose heart had been changed – right there before their eyes. Something had surely happened to transform the frightened, disheartened fisherman who’d been in hiding with his friends into this charismatic orator, addressing a crowd of thousands,- never mind his unexpected gift with languages.
Such was the power of the Holy Spirit, everything about him was different,- and we ourselves are heirs of that difference, since the same Spirit is available to us here and now. Each of us is called into that new kind of life, first at Baptism then again and again throughout our Christian life.
For us, God is both surgeon and donor. At Baptism, it is he, working through the priest as the representative of his Church, who offers us a new lease of spiritual life, the life that comes directly from him. It’s this life that Jesus won for us by his death on the cross. His death, leading to our life…. That's what we are baptised into.
If we call someone stony-hearted, we're recognising that in some ways they are less than human, because they seem untouched by the troubles and sufferings of the rest of the world. But when God offers us a new heart, a feeling "heart of flesh" that heart will be as full of love and concern as is His own. We will become the people whom, all along, he intended us to be. That sense lies, too, behind the promise to bring us into our own land, the place where we can truly be at home, fully ourselves. As Augustine says,God had made us for himself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in him….He is our homeland.
Of course, the most common problem in all transplant surgery is that of rejection. The body is simply unable to accept the new healthy heart and the other organs shut down in rebellion. I’d say that’s a familiar phenomenon in our spiritual lives too. When we look at ourselves, at the church, and the world, we see minimal evidence of the transformed lives our readings celebrate. We read about the contagious Christianity of the early Church with a mixture of incredulity and awe, and compare ourselves unfavourably. What’s gone wrong? Was the gift of the Spirit after all a one-off event,- necessary so that the Church might be born, but no longer in evidence today? I’m writing these words on Saturday, - and though I know we’ll pray earnestly tomorrow that the Spirit may come down upon us, I’m not altogether sure that I really expect something radical to happen.
Which, of course, makes me part of the problem.
The Holy Spirit is an enabler, and not a dictator.
If we are too frightened to open our hearts to her, she won’t force us to do so…and it seems to me that very often we are ruled by our fears. We understand, don’t we, that open-heart surgery is not something to undertake lightly.
Who knows where we’ll end up, or how different our lives may look if we let the Spirit in to our lives, as individuals and as a church. It’s scary stuff.
We might need to jettison things that we really value, might have to put our selves on the line…
Let’s just think about this for a minute.
Perhaps my old heart isn't that unhealthy after all…no transplants today, please. I’ll hang on and see if I recover by myself.
When it comes down to it, I’m not certain I actually want to change so much that I stick out from the crowd. Sure, I want to be transformed by the Spirit, but not so that I actually have to change my daily lifestyle, make sacrifices, whether of time, of money or of self-esteem,- take the initiative, repair damaged relationships,.
Deep down, I may not be sure that I can really trust the surgeon here,- and I don’t want to die on the table.
I suspect that I’m not alone in this kind of internal struggle, but I do realise that ultimately it’s a mug’s game. None of us can actually turn ourselves around to become the sort of shiny spiritual beings we long to be unless we offer the Holy Spirit a free hand in our lives. We can’t guarantee that we’ll emerge from the process with everything that we THINK we need preserved intact…but we can trust God to look after the essentials. After all, he loves us even more than we love ourselves,- and his vision for our lives is something wonderful beyond our wildest imaginings.
So,- what to do now?
The disciples spent time together in prayer, as they waited and longed for the Comforter, the one who would strengthen them for their mission to the world,- so prayer, honest, open prayer seems a good place for us to begin.
And while we pray, we might perhaps begin to experiment with trying to live transformed lives.
If we’re finding it hard to believe that God really is at work changing things where we are, then perhaps we might go looking for him out in the world. If we fear that he will drive us beyond our comfort zones, then stepping out in that direction might itself be a step towards meeting him. We may not feel as if we’ve been transformed, but if we begin to live that way the process may surprise us en route. After all, Jesus spent most of his time on the margins, mixing with people whom we might not normally choose to befriend. Perhaps he would like us to look for him there…or he might surprise us by standing waiting right on our own doorstep.
I honestly don’t know,- but I’d like the courage to explore.
So, it’s back to prayer. If we ask, God will give us a new heart so that we can recognise, welcome and love him in all people and in all places…
We may never share the dramatic heights of charismatic experience,- but the promise which God makes through Ezekiel holds good today. He offers us nothing less than his own Spirit of love, and invites us into a relationship with him, a relationship that can transform not just every aspect of our present reality, but which offers boundless possibilities for the future too.
“You shall be my people and I will be your God.”
“Lord, your summons echoes true if you but call my name
Let me come and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go
Where you love and healing show
So I’ll live and move and grow in you
And you in me.”
Amen.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Beaches, bubbles and birthdays.
So this is the week to date.Monday, wet weekend in the Cotswolds but happy horsey walk.
Tuesday,- trip to the seaside, to see my very special, much-loved Honorary Mother Eirene. Lunch at a seaside restaurant that looked as if it was modelled on the 70s cafe chain The Golden Egg (if anyone else can remember how dreadful that was). Further evidence that you should never judge by appearances, as waiting staff and chef were in a very different league, and we ate wonderful bouillabaisse as we looked at the sun sparkling on the waves, then emerged to all sorts of seaside madness. Eirene and the beach go together, as she was very much part of my childhood in St Leonards-on-Sea, doing all the outdoor picnicky things for me that my own mother's poor health was prone to disrupt. After my parents' deaths, it was Eirene who would pour me huge gins and listen to the tales of joy or woe that I brought back from Cambridge, Eirene who came to stay to look after us all when I was having my babes, Eirene who has been the perfect grandmother all the way through their lives. When we were running the B&B and too tied to the Cotswolds to manage a family holiday I would take the children down to stay with her, still in Sussex,- so they share could many of my special places and memories. Now she is alarmingly elderly, and has moved from her huge flat in a Victorian Gothic pseudo castle to a more conventional abode,- but she is very definitely undimmed by the process. Her hearing is poor, but none of us needs to talk to enjoy being together. What's more, both my boys forgot how grown-up they technically are, and messed around in the sea like a pair of 6 year olds! (So, in fact, did their mother).
Yesterday was a feline birthday. Tallis, Osca and Whisper,- many congratulations!
2 years on, I'm beginning to recover from the trauma of Chloe's accouchement just a fortnight before we decamped to the Curate's house,- though it was pretty disturbing at the time. I spent the day happily pottering around house and garden, - failing, of course, to accomplish the tasks that I'd planned for this mini holiday, but thoroughly enjoying the process, which included lunch in the sun and the arrival of the new car. Since it is a Citroen, and a sort of steely grey I'm considering naming it Clouseau. It seems a rather grown-up car for me, so perhaps naming it after a crazily inept fictional detective will bring it down to my level??
And today? Today I'm back to work, though sitting here blogging on the laptop in the garden it doesn't much feel like it! But it's my lunch hour, and I've a meeting tonight, so I'm not going to waste any guilt.
This morning, a huge parcel of Ordinary Time books arrived, looking splendid, so I'm excited all over again. It being that sort of day, there was quite alot of other post from some rather lovely people. I wish I could share details of the Most Inappropriate Present Ever...but it would be awful if its donor came to realise. Email me if you really want to know (it may not actually be worth it, but it did make the GoodinParts giggle).Little Fishes were in festal mood, thinking about Pentecost, so we blew up balloons, drifted clouds of bubbles down from the pulpit and talked about the way that the Spirit gives life to the most unlikely people and situations. M. danced after the bubbles as they floated just out of reach, B. watched open-mouthed as one vanished into the heights of the roof, way out of sight...and we sang "Spirit of the living God" and I prayed silently that the Spirit's presence might always be that real for all of us. St M's needs those children so badly.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Reasons why I should resist the urge to join in memes...
Sometimes, they are simply beyond me! Purechristianithink has tagged me with this:
5 Reasons why I’m cool
Hang on a moment...I have two problems with this. The first is that I have no pretensions to coolness whatsoever. How could this middle aged mother of 3, who is also a clergybird ever aspire to coolness??
Some things are just not possible!
The second problem is that to believe oneself cool must surely exclude one immediately from the company of coolness…Catch 22 alive and well.
However,- given that this is all a load of nonsense and I have today off, with only 3 million things I should be doing (instead of the more usual 5 million)…if I were cool, these might be the reasons why
- I was for some years the devoted driver of a red and white 2CV named Skippy
- I own those flowery Docs,- which surely ought to belong to someone cool,- so maybe I am?
- DarlingDaughter says that I am "the coolest mother ever",- but as I’m the only one she has ever owned, and she seems to base this largely on our shared taste in shopping, some music, and online friendships,I have severe doubts about what this proves. However my 6’ son is still prepared to be seen hugging me in public, which might count for something...
- And I do have some utterly , indisputably cool & wonderful friends…who seem prepared to spend time with me
But it’s no good, that’s still only 4.
Brief consultation with TeenWonder nets the following result
“It’s cool the way you’re rude about St M’s when you need to be. But I don’t think you’re supposed to be cool. I think you’re supposed to be my Mummy.”
Told you so!
Monday, May 29, 2006
My subject is War, and the pity of War
wrote Wilfred Owen, in the introduction to his collected poems. To my mind, pity is only part of the story...obscenity feels closer to the mark.
LoudBoy came home last night from a trip organised through the school History department to visit the battlefields and cemeteries of the First World War, - and was predictably amazed by the whole experience. He had borrowed Longsuffering ClockMaker’s camera, and as we sat round after supper he showed us shot after shot of war graves, towns and villages destroyed and rebuilt, and the endless lists of names of those whose bodies were never recovered from the Flanders mud. TeenWonder had made the same trip two years before, and the boys compared impressions while I dealt with a rising tide of outrage that any country should presume to send its youth into such carnage. LoudBoy had been chosen to lay a wreath on behalf of his school during the daily ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres and one of his friends had shot a brief video. Suddenly our conversation was halted by the sound of the Last Post, - echoing across miles and years and bringing the past straight into the present.
The youngest soldier to die in Flanders was 13,- the same age as LoudBoy,- while at 16 TeenWonder would have been ideal cannon fodder.
I held onto my sons, weeping for a while for all those women whose sons had never come home.
Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for those who die like cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
LoudBoy came home last night from a trip organised through the school History department to visit the battlefields and cemeteries of the First World War, - and was predictably amazed by the whole experience. He had borrowed Longsuffering ClockMaker’s camera, and as we sat round after supper he showed us shot after shot of war graves, towns and villages destroyed and rebuilt, and the endless lists of names of those whose bodies were never recovered from the Flanders mud. TeenWonder had made the same trip two years before, and the boys compared impressions while I dealt with a rising tide of outrage that any country should presume to send its youth into such carnage. LoudBoy had been chosen to lay a wreath on behalf of his school during the daily ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres and one of his friends had shot a brief video. Suddenly our conversation was halted by the sound of the Last Post, - echoing across miles and years and bringing the past straight into the present.
The youngest soldier to die in Flanders was 13,- the same age as LoudBoy,- while at 16 TeenWonder would have been ideal cannon fodder.
I held onto my sons, weeping for a while for all those women whose sons had never come home.
Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for those who die like cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
" As much fun
as a wet weekend in the Cotswolds" ,- runs a family saying (a derivative of a more standard less regional phrase whose meaning is surely obvious). But this is a wet weekend in the Cotswolds, and actually I'm having a lovely time. Not having to preach yesterday, apart from at one Baptism (when I definitely talk, rather than preach in any case) and with today clear, thanks to the Bank Holiday, life feels delightfully low-pressure. I should perhaps be trying to get ahead of myself (there's a raft of major projects coming up in the next two weeks) but I'm also very aware that a bit of re-creation will enable me to approach these more positively, so that's my justification for the absolutely inevitable procrastination this time round!So, this morning LoudBoy and I dodged the hail storms and went out with dogs and pony. My camera is currently ailing (prayers that I can find the guarantee would be welcome, if it weren't so pathetic), so I only had my phone with which to capture the stunning rainbow that spread itself out across the valley, but I'm posting it anyway in the hopes that those kind people who did clever things to my inferior photos in the past might return and remind me of how I improve things! The countryside is staggeringly beautiful right now...the headrows frothy with cow-parsley, matched only by the bloom on the hawthorns, and interspersed with buttercups campion, and a few stray bluebells.
I love the countryside so much in May,- regardless of the weather. In early childhood, I was quite sure that the Whit of "Whitsun" referred not to such abstruse things as white baptismal robes but to the drifts of flowers that skirted every country lane. It never occurred to me that this wasn't actually the backdrop to the New Testament events,- though I did worry rather about how Jesus and his friends would manage the prevalent mud in those open sandals. Such a bright child....!
Sunday, May 28, 2006
A Woman's Experiences of Episcopacy
was the title of an evening organised by the Gloucester branch of WATCH on Friday. Our speaker was Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, ECUSA an engaging and entertaining speaker, whose very presence was a sign of hope and encouragement at this time when the Church of England’s debates on the ordination of women bishops have reopened all sorts of wounds that had never healed a decade after the ordination of the first women priests here.
I really enjoyed hearing her, - but I came home more troubled than ever about the model of ministry that still seems to be seen as most effective. +Geralyn had clearly had a rough ride in the early days of her episcopacy,- and beyond. That she is still in post and able to show such warmth and humanity is impressive in itself, but it seemed to me that the price of her survival has been her agreement to meet the men on their own turf in their own way. The seventy hour week seems to be an inescapable part of the deal, as does a hefty suit of emotional armour,- neither of which sounds specially attractive.
The familiar clergy problem of dealing with the projections of others is, not surprisingly, doubled in spades for a Bishop…she and our own +Michael talked about the need to be a “parent in God”,- while not actually taking on the emotional role of mother or father,- and this seems to be more of an issue for +G. Indeed, mothering came up in several ways, as she spoke of her anxiety about the number of part time women clergy in her diocese. She seemed to be implying that, in opting to combine ministry and motherhood these women were effectively limiting the scope of their vocation to either, and announced regretfully that “part-time women” (an intriguing concept, to my mind!) would be doomed to live out their ministry “on the edge”, instead of in successful mainstream parishes that could afford to employ a full-time vicar. Here, we’ve been positively campaigning for more flexible patterns of ministry, that allow part-time possibilities…and hencity voiced the thoughts of many there when she asked what was the problem with being “on the edge”. After all, a certain carpenter from Nazareth seemed to spend most of his time there…+Geralyn’s point was, I think, that clergywomen are already marginalised enough by virtue of gender, without finding themselves spending their working lives among the marginalised as well…but I’d want to say that this is very much my dream, and would be something I would choose over almost any other type of ministry, as things stand now.
At the end of the evening, I was full of admiration for Bishop Geralyn, but less sure than ever why any sane woman would ever consider episcopacy. But then, as someone pointed out, you would never do any of these mad mad jobs if you didn’t feel called by God…so I can just thank him from the bottom of my heart that this is not my calling!
I really enjoyed hearing her, - but I came home more troubled than ever about the model of ministry that still seems to be seen as most effective. +Geralyn had clearly had a rough ride in the early days of her episcopacy,- and beyond. That she is still in post and able to show such warmth and humanity is impressive in itself, but it seemed to me that the price of her survival has been her agreement to meet the men on their own turf in their own way. The seventy hour week seems to be an inescapable part of the deal, as does a hefty suit of emotional armour,- neither of which sounds specially attractive.
The familiar clergy problem of dealing with the projections of others is, not surprisingly, doubled in spades for a Bishop…she and our own +Michael talked about the need to be a “parent in God”,- while not actually taking on the emotional role of mother or father,- and this seems to be more of an issue for +G. Indeed, mothering came up in several ways, as she spoke of her anxiety about the number of part time women clergy in her diocese. She seemed to be implying that, in opting to combine ministry and motherhood these women were effectively limiting the scope of their vocation to either, and announced regretfully that “part-time women” (an intriguing concept, to my mind!) would be doomed to live out their ministry “on the edge”, instead of in successful mainstream parishes that could afford to employ a full-time vicar. Here, we’ve been positively campaigning for more flexible patterns of ministry, that allow part-time possibilities…and hencity voiced the thoughts of many there when she asked what was the problem with being “on the edge”. After all, a certain carpenter from Nazareth seemed to spend most of his time there…+Geralyn’s point was, I think, that clergywomen are already marginalised enough by virtue of gender, without finding themselves spending their working lives among the marginalised as well…but I’d want to say that this is very much my dream, and would be something I would choose over almost any other type of ministry, as things stand now.
At the end of the evening, I was full of admiration for Bishop Geralyn, but less sure than ever why any sane woman would ever consider episcopacy. But then, as someone pointed out, you would never do any of these mad mad jobs if you didn’t feel called by God…so I can just thank him from the bottom of my heart that this is not my calling!
Friday, May 26, 2006
This I believe...
This week's Friday Five could actually keep me going for weeks, I think. To distill so much into 5 points is horribly reminiscent of one of the "personal inventory" questions beloved of Bishops' Selectors...
Now, as then, I've far more that I'd want to say,- images, words, music that could say things better. But for today this is my semi-serious attempt at 5 essentials of belief
Belated edit
NB VERY IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT. How could I have forgotten? Many of my friends will already be aware that I do, of course, believe in repetition...
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then all I can say is that GB04 was really rather wonderful...but that's no surprise either.
Now, as then, I've far more that I'd want to say,- images, words, music that could say things better. But for today this is my semi-serious attempt at 5 essentials of belief
- That God’s love is utterly inexhaustible, unconquerable and unconditional
- That the best is yet to be
- That nothing is beyond transformation ,- all in the end is harvest
- That everyone has a story that’s worth hearing, and deserves to be heard
- That life is for love and time only that we may find God (thank you Augustine)
Belated edit
NB VERY IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT. How could I have forgotten? Many of my friends will already be aware that I do, of course, believe in repetition...
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then all I can say is that GB04 was really rather wonderful...but that's no surprise either.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
God is gone up with a merry noise!
When I started school, I attended an Anglo Catholic Convent, where the liturgical year was taken Extremely Seriously.I specially remember Ascension Day, in those days still a public holiday, as on that festival instead of attending a service in the convent chapel we were all marched in crocodile to the church that the sisters loved best...some distance across a town that was nothing if not hilly. There, we attended a full Sung Eucharist,- distinctly baffling to the Kindergarten children like me,- and then straggled back to school again. In my memory, it was always the hottest day of the summer, and the miles multiplied, so that by the time we reached school we were totally exhausted - a shame, as the festivities were only just beginning, and the day would go on to feature sticky buns, orange juice in place of the habitual school milk (does anyone else out there remember those 1/3 pint bottles with a straw?) and then, bizarrely, Scottish Country Dancing - which was considered to be suitable entertainment for the under 11s. I knew that this was all supposed to be very exciting,- and I can still remember the taste of those glossy cinnamon buns,- but on the whole, Ascension Day left me cold.
Later, as a chorister, I realised that some of the loveliest music belonged to this Festival - (Phillips' Ascendit Deus, Gibbons' O Clap your hands ...- and that the Ascensiontide hymns had something very important to express about the Lordship of Christ. I relished standing in Great Court to hear the college choir greet the dawn, but by then I was also haunted by images of some of the more ludicrous and literal of medieval wall paintings, showing just the soles of two little pink feet as Jesus vanished into the clouds. It seemed almost impossible that anyone should take this feast seriously.
And yet,- and yet...
So much to reflect on, about our need to let Jesus go, in order to have constant access to him, - about the reign of Christ, transcending time and space....about the exaltation of our humanity (he shares our humanity so that we might share his divinity)...about our calling to look up, to expect his return, and meanwhile to live and work in the light of the Great Commission. Trying to explain the feast to the mums and toddlers at Little Fishes this morning, I ended up hiding the "Jesus candle",- the Paschal flame that has burned since the Easter Vigil,- and then asking the children whether they thought it was still there. When we'd established that it was, and that it's flame still burned brightly, we placed it high in the pulpit, so that it could be seen from anywhere in the church. That was some improvement, but it didn't really go far enough if we really REALLY wanted everyone to see its light. So in the end, we decided that the only answer was to light one candle for each child from the Paschal candle, and so when they went home they could take the light of Christ home with them. They couldn't see the big candle any longer,- but they could each of them share in its light.
It made more sense that vanishing toes and fluffy clouds, at least from my perspective.
Augustine helped, too
"Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear....While in heaven he is also with us, and we while on earth are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, bey divinity, but in him we can be there by love. He did not leave heaven when he came down to us..nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven....These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body....Out of compassion for us he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace....the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head."
Since I'm feeling non creative at the moment
here's a rather lovely thing that arrived in the most recent mailing from WATCH. It's the WATCH dream for the Church, as articulated by Simon Bailey
I'm dreaming
about a church of sensitivity and openness,
a church of healing and welcome.
I'm dreaming
about a community of friends
that celebrates differences
and diversity and variety,
a community that is forgiving, cherishing, wide open.
I dream
of women and men who minister
life and laughter and love;
of men and women who minister
healing and harmony and hope;
of women and men who minister to each other
and minister to the crying needs of a world that hurts.
I dream
against the rough climb still to come,
against expectation, against pessimism and despair;
I dream, I dream
of the clear panorama
of the vision of light right at the top of the mountain.
I'm dreaming
about a church of sensitivity and openness,
a church of healing and welcome.
I'm dreaming
about a community of friends
that celebrates differences
and diversity and variety,
a community that is forgiving, cherishing, wide open.
I dream
of women and men who minister
life and laughter and love;
of men and women who minister
healing and harmony and hope;
of women and men who minister to each other
and minister to the crying needs of a world that hurts.
I dream
against the rough climb still to come,
against expectation, against pessimism and despair;
I dream, I dream
of the clear panorama
of the vision of light right at the top of the mountain.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Who am I?
I'm certainly not feeling very Kathryn-like at the moment (though in a good, if startled, way).
Gardening leave began with a shopping expedition to look at possible Curate cars, which would also accommodate 6' son plus 2 other passengers in the back, and leave room for dogs and LCM too. My initial idea proved unworkable within one second of TeenWonder getting into the car concerned. Even I could see that spending every journey with his head at a 45 degree angle to his body was unlikely to be of long-term benefit to the boy...but I did have a vision of a cuddly, friendly-looking car that would remind me of my 2CVs while somehow conveying the whole GoodinParts family in comfort. We found 2 possibilities, - but once we'd done the sums and investigated the assorted loans available, 1 emerged as a clear winner.
It's slightly bigger than I'd envisaged, but really really easy to drive and has all sorts of wonderful free tax, free servicing, free RAC,free petrol (well, sadly not that one) type deals...and an interest free loan too.
The bad news is that little Matiz seems to be worth half nothing,- so we're wondering whether DarlingDaughter and TeenWonder might appreciate our hanging onto it for their use...but 3 cars for 5 people seems ridiculous, specially now we are no longer in the wilds of nowhere. Hmmmmmm.
Anyway, new car will arrive on the Wednesday of half-term, which is rather fun,- though the inevitable tidal-wave of guilt about owning a car at all is in the throes of engulfing me (so I must be reverting to type after all).
Having signed scary car-buying contract, I then drove down to Bristol to play with C...
More uncharacteristic activity included watching my first-ever Eurovision Song Contest,- getting very excited when a totally bizarre group of monsters (reputedly Klingons) from Finland won with a song called Hard Rock Hallelujah. Still wondering how to work them into a sermon...
In contrast, Big Brother left me utterly cold. No entertainment value whatsoever, and not much of anything else either...but perhaps I'm attacking it from the wrong angle?
Then, this morning, I OVERSLEPT and it didn't matter a toss. Wonderful.
And we ate almond croissant and watched (finally) Brokeback Mountain. Rather lovely,- though I do have a fondness for happy endings, which was clearly never going to be satisfied here.
Meanwhile, it rained and galed outside and I didn't feel I ought to be doing anything at all. Highly satisfactory,- can't remember when I last had a Sunday like thi!.
C, you are a wonderful friend to spend a holiday with. Thank you.
Can't imagine the rest of my leave will live up to these standards, but it's something to aim for!
Gardening leave began with a shopping expedition to look at possible Curate cars, which would also accommodate 6' son plus 2 other passengers in the back, and leave room for dogs and LCM too. My initial idea proved unworkable within one second of TeenWonder getting into the car concerned. Even I could see that spending every journey with his head at a 45 degree angle to his body was unlikely to be of long-term benefit to the boy...but I did have a vision of a cuddly, friendly-looking car that would remind me of my 2CVs while somehow conveying the whole GoodinParts family in comfort. We found 2 possibilities, - but once we'd done the sums and investigated the assorted loans available, 1 emerged as a clear winner.
It's slightly bigger than I'd envisaged, but really really easy to drive and has all sorts of wonderful free tax, free servicing, free RAC,free petrol (well, sadly not that one) type deals...and an interest free loan too.The bad news is that little Matiz seems to be worth half nothing,- so we're wondering whether DarlingDaughter and TeenWonder might appreciate our hanging onto it for their use...but 3 cars for 5 people seems ridiculous, specially now we are no longer in the wilds of nowhere. Hmmmmmm.
Anyway, new car will arrive on the Wednesday of half-term, which is rather fun,- though the inevitable tidal-wave of guilt about owning a car at all is in the throes of engulfing me (so I must be reverting to type after all).
Having signed scary car-buying contract, I then drove down to Bristol to play with C...
More uncharacteristic activity included watching my first-ever Eurovision Song Contest,- getting very excited when a totally bizarre group of monsters (reputedly Klingons) from Finland won with a song called Hard Rock Hallelujah. Still wondering how to work them into a sermon...
In contrast, Big Brother left me utterly cold. No entertainment value whatsoever, and not much of anything else either...but perhaps I'm attacking it from the wrong angle?
Then, this morning, I OVERSLEPT and it didn't matter a toss. Wonderful.
And we ate almond croissant and watched (finally) Brokeback Mountain. Rather lovely,- though I do have a fondness for happy endings, which was clearly never going to be satisfied here.
Meanwhile, it rained and galed outside and I didn't feel I ought to be doing anything at all. Highly satisfactory,- can't remember when I last had a Sunday like thi!.
C, you are a wonderful friend to spend a holiday with. Thank you.
Can't imagine the rest of my leave will live up to these standards, but it's something to aim for!
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Gardening Leave
WonderfulVicar has been doing his sums, and worked out that I've been rather bad at taking my leave allocation, and as a result is madly crossing through days in my diary and telling me to go away and relax. Since TeenWonder is in the middle of exams, and school continues as normal for LoudBoy too, actually going anywhere isn't madly practical, but I'm still going to play for the next few days. Off to see OnePedestrian later today (and I don't have to hurry home for church tomorrow) then the dogs should do quite well for exciting outings,- and, if it only stops raining, I might actually get to spend some time in the garden.
Oh dear,- gardening leave? Is WonderfulVicar trying to tell me something?
Oh dear,- gardening leave? Is WonderfulVicar trying to tell me something?
From many an ancient river, from many a palmy plain...*
In the wake of thoughts about African Christianity, it was rather dispiriting to spend time on Thursday with some visitors from our link diocese in South India…Their host while they're in Gloucester is part of our "Fresh Expressions" group, and he’d thought that they might find our meeting interesting,- which they probably did, if not quite as he’d hoped.
You see, they seem to be firmly wedded to the idea of church as "pastor + congregation + Gothic style building + Hymns A& M" (the latter, according to WonderfulVicar, to be sung veeeerrry slowly,- presumably a sign of reverence) .
They made it very clear that all the creative ways of being church which we had been discussing with enthusiasm simply WEREN'T church at all in their book. For them, I suspect,we were not so much barking up the wrong tree, as totally barking!
Café church? - Cafes are places to drink coffee.
Dog walks? Good exercise for humans and dogs, but even when done with an intentional spiritual element they are positively sinful if they replace your attendance at a formal liturgy on a Sunday.
Messy Church? Downright disrespectful of the God who brought creation out of chaos.
What’s more, if a small Christian community emerges out of the work of an evangelist, to be a church it has to get itself organised…key into some Real Liturgy and develop a PCC and Church Wardens at top speed. That’s what you need to be church.
I do appreciate that where Christianity is a minority faith, there is perhaps more need to focus on visible witness,- but it did make me sad to think that the witness would be valued most if it matched a model propagated by Victorian missionaries. Indigenous expressions of church are clearly disapproved of by the mainstream church, in their diocese at least. There, she apparently sees herself as called to continue to suppress and not to baptise the culture,- so I went home feeling rather ashamed at the legacy of Empire, that lingers so tenaciously long after the final sunset.
*PS The title of this post comes from a truly terrible hymn which we sang at the Anglican Convent that I attended for Kindergarten. I loved the travel agent's pictures that the words conjured up for me (From Greenland's icy mountains, to India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains roll down her golden strand....)and just didn't understand why my father would shudder if I sang it around the house. I grew up a little, changed schools and didn't come across it again till rifling through the hymnbook for sight- reading practice in my teens. It comes in the section of The English Hymnal "For Missionaries",- and is a classic of its type. But I have to say, I think Daddy had the right idea!
You see, they seem to be firmly wedded to the idea of church as "pastor + congregation + Gothic style building + Hymns A& M" (the latter, according to WonderfulVicar, to be sung veeeerrry slowly,- presumably a sign of reverence) .
They made it very clear that all the creative ways of being church which we had been discussing with enthusiasm simply WEREN'T church at all in their book. For them, I suspect,we were not so much barking up the wrong tree, as totally barking!
Café church? - Cafes are places to drink coffee.
Dog walks? Good exercise for humans and dogs, but even when done with an intentional spiritual element they are positively sinful if they replace your attendance at a formal liturgy on a Sunday.
Messy Church? Downright disrespectful of the God who brought creation out of chaos.
What’s more, if a small Christian community emerges out of the work of an evangelist, to be a church it has to get itself organised…key into some Real Liturgy and develop a PCC and Church Wardens at top speed. That’s what you need to be church.
I do appreciate that where Christianity is a minority faith, there is perhaps more need to focus on visible witness,- but it did make me sad to think that the witness would be valued most if it matched a model propagated by Victorian missionaries. Indigenous expressions of church are clearly disapproved of by the mainstream church, in their diocese at least. There, she apparently sees herself as called to continue to suppress and not to baptise the culture,- so I went home feeling rather ashamed at the legacy of Empire, that lingers so tenaciously long after the final sunset.
*PS The title of this post comes from a truly terrible hymn which we sang at the Anglican Convent that I attended for Kindergarten. I loved the travel agent's pictures that the words conjured up for me (From Greenland's icy mountains, to India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains roll down her golden strand....)and just didn't understand why my father would shudder if I sang it around the house. I grew up a little, changed schools and didn't come across it again till rifling through the hymnbook for sight- reading practice in my teens. It comes in the section of The English Hymnal "For Missionaries",- and is a classic of its type. But I have to say, I think Daddy had the right idea!
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Jesus of the Deep Forest
I've googled "Jesus of the Deep Forest" without much joy. There are lots of articles that reference it, (this one looks specially worth investigating further) but nothing more from the work itself. Here's the information from the footnotes in the Cambridge Companion
Afua Kuma Jesus of the Deep Forest eds & Trans Peter Kwas Ameyaw, Fr Jon Kirby SVD et al (Accra:Asempa Press 1980)...The rendering I quoted is by Mercy Amba Aduyoye.
These words of hers about the text hit me quite forcibly too..
"She (Afua Kuma) represents the women who weave lyrics about Jesus and pour their hearts out in prayer and praise at all times and in all places, the women whose theology gets reduced into writing by those who can write"
Our culture is so firmly based upon the written word, it's almost impossible to envisage thinking aloud in that creative way and then not writing it down. But perhaps it's our urge to confine our thoughts and visions to paper that has so narrowed our horizons that we find it hard to ever look beyond them. Our God-talk, and our God-thoughts are shaped by the cadences of the Scripture and liturgy we grew up with...which can be so dangerously close to becoming a substitute for a first-hand relationship with the God who is more than any words.
Meanwhile, these are the only texts from Madame Afua Kuma that I could actually find on the web...and they bear repeating too, as we seek a wider vision for our place, our time.
"Chief, who listens to the poor,Humble King
Your words are precious jewels.
We don't buy them, we don't beg for them;
You give them to us freely!
Giver of good gifts we are waiting for you,
And the sick are waiting for medicine.
O Jesus, you have swallowed death,
and every kind of disease,
And have made us whole again."
"He is the great Grass Hut, the Shed which shelters mice
The "thump thump" of the pestle, he beats down our hunger
Hard wood hoe-handle, which brings us our food
Onyankopon Amponyinam; God the provider"
Afua Kuma Jesus of the Deep Forest eds & Trans Peter Kwas Ameyaw, Fr Jon Kirby SVD et al (Accra:Asempa Press 1980)...The rendering I quoted is by Mercy Amba Aduyoye.
These words of hers about the text hit me quite forcibly too..
"She (Afua Kuma) represents the women who weave lyrics about Jesus and pour their hearts out in prayer and praise at all times and in all places, the women whose theology gets reduced into writing by those who can write"
Our culture is so firmly based upon the written word, it's almost impossible to envisage thinking aloud in that creative way and then not writing it down. But perhaps it's our urge to confine our thoughts and visions to paper that has so narrowed our horizons that we find it hard to ever look beyond them. Our God-talk, and our God-thoughts are shaped by the cadences of the Scripture and liturgy we grew up with...which can be so dangerously close to becoming a substitute for a first-hand relationship with the God who is more than any words.
Meanwhile, these are the only texts from Madame Afua Kuma that I could actually find on the web...and they bear repeating too, as we seek a wider vision for our place, our time.
"Chief, who listens to the poor,Humble King
Your words are precious jewels.
We don't buy them, we don't beg for them;
You give them to us freely!
Giver of good gifts we are waiting for you,
And the sick are waiting for medicine.
O Jesus, you have swallowed death,
and every kind of disease,
And have made us whole again."
"He is the great Grass Hut, the Shed which shelters mice
The "thump thump" of the pestle, he beats down our hunger
Hard wood hoe-handle, which brings us our food
Onyankopon Amponyinam; God the provider"
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
The small, non threatening feminist theology reading group I’m part of met on Monday to discuss Susan Frank Parsons Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology.Predictably, I hadn’t managed to finish the book, (don't forget, I slept through Monday afternoon) but our discussion majored on intercultural aspects of feminist theology, and one fascinating contribution from Mercy Amba Oduyoye on African Christology. Lest that sound rather abstract and difficult, let me share straight away the passage that struck me,- quoted from another work
Jesus of the Deep Forest, which is so clearly rooted in its African context that it was at first rather startling to my western consciousness.
“All powerful Jesus who engages in marvellous deeds, he is the one called Hero Okatakyi. Of all earthly dominions he is master; the Python not overcome with mere sticks, the Big Boat which cannot be sunk.
Jesus, Saviour of the poor, who brightens up our faces! Damfo-Adu: the clever one. We rely on you as the tongue relies on the mouth.
The great Rock we hide behind: the great forest canopy that gives cool shade: the Big Tree that lifts its vines to peep at the heavens, the magnificent Tree whose dripping leaves encourage luxurient growth”
I was quite disconcerted to realise that I’d read the first few images at top speed, treating them as if they were folk tales from a children’s story book, simply skimming over the surface because they didn’t connect with the God-language I habitually use.
It was only when the more familiar Rock appeared that it brought me up short, and I realised how discourteous I was being to the text, and to another culture’s attempts to communicate a reality that no language can contain. I hate the realisation that I was too immured in my familiar mindset to honour this alternative by serious reflection…and that my cultural blinkers had almost escaped my own notice.
In the group, we talked about what images we might find immediate and real in our current context, where millstones and vines don’t have a lot to say to us,- but acknowledged that the influence of those we’ve inherited is so powerful that it is very demanding to attempt to improve on them . I'm still trying to think of a model of dependence to replace the vine (not a lot of those at this end of Gloucestershire).
Any suggestions?
I was pleased, though, that when I read further on in the text
“The Christ of the women of Africa upholds not only motherhood but all who, like Jesus of Nazareth, perform “mothering roles” of bringing out the best in those around them” I immediately connected with another African image from earlier in the chapter "Jesus, the great Tree that enables climbing plants to reach the sun”
If we confine our God-language to our own cultural context, we are continually limiting the opportunities to reflect on realities whose fulness is beyond any expression.
Lots to think about here. Wish it were possible to meet together more often,but even on a termly basis, we've yet to find a single date that all those interested can actually manage. Are we all stupidly busy, I wonder?
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Rather less trivial
If you're in the UK and were considering buying a newspaper today, please make sure it's
The Independent. If you can't get hold of a paper copy, visit the website. Just do it, please.
Guest-edited by Bono, it focusses on the HIV/Aids crisis in Africa, and half the cost of the paper goes towards fighting the spread of the disease there.
The front page shown is by Damien Hirst, and the small print (which you won't be able to read here) reminds us
"Just 6,500 Africans died today as a result of a preventable, treatable disease. (HIV/Aids)."
The Bible reference which you might not be able to make out either is Genesis 1:27
"So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them."
Liz has thoughtful comments here
The headline put me in mind, most of all, of Dicken's savage obituary for Joe the crossing sweeper in Bleak House
"Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day."
That's the terrible reality. Dying thus around us every day.
Kyrie Eleison.
The Docs in Question.
Just so you know! I'd hate you to think I wasn't really as shallow and trivial as the next girl :-)Despite the assertion in the book we've been reading for the WATCH feminist theology reading group, that women's besetting sins are
"failure to assume responsibility, sloth, the lack of ego and triviality" I 'm not actually too penitent.
My Docs (not entirely worn in yet, and an ebay bargain as they are actually 2 different sizes) are fast becoming a trade mark, and have worked wonderfully as an ice-breaker on potentially uncomfortable occasions.
As for the other besetting sins...I'll own 2 out of 3. Guesses, anyone?
And what about you?
How to cheer up The Curate!
Yesterday in Privet Drive was damp and gloomy. I have a cold, the sort that makes me want to sleep all day ,- not a very realistic option, though I did drop off on the sofa in the study while preparing for the feminst theology reading group....no reflection on the text....and woke up to discover I'd missed both Evening Prayer and the Monday Eucharist (thanks be to God, I wasn't presiding)!DarlingDaughter sounded rather homesick and scared when she blogged. Her first day of teaching is tomorrow, and she had yet to meet her family (who turn out to be wonderful, but she didn't know that then) and was running short of hugs and self confidence...
One way and another it just wasn't easy to stir myself to anything much, and when the dogs started barking manically I was just cross...crosser still when the doorbell rang...but had to recant my crossness the moment I opened the door, to be greeted by The Man from the Florist.
Lovely lovely flowers, a gift from C's family (chosen to match my Docs, apparently ;-) ) So, I had to start smiling, didn't I? What a difference saying thank you so beautifully makes. Happy Curate!
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