Five things...

Five things you probably didn’t know about me
1. I have visited Kazakhstan (before Borat, who hasn’t been there anyway).
2. I have a Silver C gliding proficiency award.
3. I have given 140 donations of blood.
4. I used to be paid to take my clothes off in public.
5. My napkin rings have been handled by HRH The Prince of Wales…

Having accepted Simon's challenge, he has also tagged the bloggers I would have tagged...so you are spared. This time.

Que sera sera...

If you haven't seen it already the forecast for 2007 produced by the prescient people at Religious Intelligence (is that an oxymoron or tautology, I wonder) is well worth a look. Try http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=533

Thanks to a certain Dean for the info.
And a belated Happy Christmas and premature Happy New Year to the (few) readers of this blog.

New Year photo quiz - who is the fellow in the photo?

The Costly Loss of Lament...

Wading my way through the essays – preparing sermons must be preferable – I have been reading what Walter Brueggemann has to say about lament psalms (The Psalms and the Life of Faith, 1995). Sounds boring? But it seems strangely applicable to recent discussion of what one puts on a blog about what goes on at college or at work (see www.wannabepriest.org.uk). Brueggemann notes that we have removed the laments from our use of the scriptures and thus have lost the specific social function that they perform. In the laments ‘Israel moves from articulation of the hurt and anger, to submission of them to God, and finally to relinquishment.’ The lament psalm redresses the distribution of power between the two parties, so that the complainer is taken seriously and God gets involved in the crisis.
Brueggemann asks what happens when appreciation of the lament as a form of speech and faith is lost, as it is largely now. When speech forms that redress power distribution are silenced and eliminated? His answer is ‘a theological monopoly is reinforced, docility and submissiveness are engendered, and the outcome in terms of social practice is to reinforce and consolidate the political-economic monopoly of the status quo. In other words, the removal of lament from life and liturgy is not disinterested…’ Later, ‘covenant minus lament is finally a practice of denial, cover-up and pretense, which sanctions social control.’ One party to the covenant is disenfranchised and has become voiceless.
Well, it gave me something to think about re what one blogs about. Does/can a blog function as a contemporary lament?
Back to Augustine of Hippo…

Quiet day: lunch

Called, we form
an accidental procession
along the double-bended
corridor, following
the old groove,
earthy threads worn
by our tread,
thin at tricky corners;
beyond a table spread,
bread for breaking,
wine for drinking.

The light of your presence…

Sitting yesterday in a wonderfully quiet and peaceful evening prayer, as writ in Common Worship, I got to musing about stained glass windows.
Wikipedia says the following about stained glass:
‘Although usually set into windows, the purpose of stained glass is not to allow those within a building to see out or even primarily to admit light but rather to control it. For this reason stained glass windows have been described as 'illuminated wall decorations'.’
(See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stained-glass)
Looking up at the chapel’s east window, I could see very little of its colours and design because it was dark outside. When you are inside a church you need light outside to see the windows. But if you are outside in the dark, there needs to be light inside the church in order for you to see the windows.
A reminder that as tellers of the gospel we need to be both in the church and outside in the world.

Pray always...

I am enjoying reading a book I bought on impulse while on our staircase quiet day at Ely Cathedral last week. I have more than enough books already but never mind, having lots of books seems to be a characteristic of vicar people. ‘Sister Wendy on Prayer’ is well worth looking at, if you can get on with her slightly sideways look on things – which appeals to me being a slightly sideways person myself. Her ‘Gaze of Love’ was a brilliant meditation resource for me on retreat once – now out of print but occasionally surfaces in second hand shops and offered on Amazon for quite a lot of money.
One thing she says is relevant to the current buzz about not being able to find time to pray at Ridley. It is a very busy and workaholic place anyway (the evangelical tendency) and even worse this term for many people on the new BA. Sister Wendy writes that when people say that there isn’t enough time to pray she suspects that they mean that they think that they don’t have enough quiet time. Besides doubting that no one can find some spare time – while having a shower, walking to the shops, not having that conversation in the kitchen or whatever – she says that this is missing the point about prayer. Prayer isn’t for our benefit. It is for God’s. It isn’t about us getting an emotional hit or feeling good by praying. It's about being there for God, about putting ourselves in front of him/her. So we don’t need to find half an hour, one hour, of quiet time. If we can that is great. But the important thing is find some moments when we can be before God, what she calls ‘flinders of time’. This, remember, is from someone who usually spends many hours each day in prayer.
I have the feeling that her approach may not sit easily in the evangelical heart but it makes sense to me. (But then, according to that quiz, I am a Wesleyan.)