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Here’s another look at the start of most recent post – courtesy of wordle
And here’s another look at Martin Luther King’s speech as wordled by mlenz.
>Humorous non-sense
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Funny business dealing with people with no apparent sense of humour. I am sure that 100% of people admit to having a sense of humour – and I defend those who are said to have none. Everyone has a funny bone. We just need to get close enough to tickle them – and there’s the problem. How to break through the barriers. Is it a problem of taking our? Is it about letting ourselves go? Is it a case of use it or lose it?
Thank God for comedy. If humour is about being ticklably close to people it becomes understandable how comedy and compassion so often come together. Look at Comic Relief.
Sr Maria Burke talks about the spirituality of humour and refers to the film Amadeus and the tragic Saleri.
Humour takes us outside ourselves; comedy is truth telling; laughter is a form of self detachment. For example, the wonderful film Amadeus can be viewed as the story of the vocation of Antonio Selieri, court composer to Joseph II of Austria. Selieri could not understand how God could gift Mozart with such talent when he did nothing to merit it and very little to nurture it. Seleri ends by attempting suicide and is placed in a mental institution. In the final scene he confesses his jealousy of Mozart and his anger at God; then he is rolled through the halls of the institute which are lined with other inmates in tragic states of mental breakdown. Selieri draws himself up as if he were the Pope being borne on the sedea gestitore, and blesses the people he passes, saying, “Mediocrities of the world, I absolve you.”
Little David
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Thinking about David …. God seems to overlook qualifications and eligibility. Today’s psalm (89) refers to how David was chosen to be king of Israel. “I have set a youth above the mighty; I have raised a young man over the people.” God’s man, Samuel was sent to Jesse’s family to anoint the one indicated. The first in line was bruought in – and Samuel gets told “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at.” (1 Sam 16). Seven of Jesse’s sons were introduced to Samuel, but it was the last and youngest in the presentation line who was the one Samuel anointed. This seems to be the way with God. He prefers the small, the last and the least. He overlooks qualifications and eligibility. Centuries later Paul rejoices in his weaknesses because he hears God: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9)
There were not many people who put money on David beating Goliath – boy against giant. But there are a lot of people who have been made to look small by the world who believe that their victory is assured because their God is one who overlooks qualifications and eligibility and has a preference for the lost, last and least.
Belbin is better known for his theories about team role preferences. His theories are also applicable in terms of recruitment. He too is prepared to overlook qualifications and eligibility. These things look backwards and eligibility does not equate to suitability. Looking at suitability is forward looking to what a person can become.
So those are eligible and suitable are an ideal fit but may be short stayers.
Those who are eligible but unsuitable are a poor fit and problems occur.
Those who are barely eligible and unsuitable are total misfits and become leavers.
Those who are barely eligible but suitable are a surprise fit and become long stayers.
Now, I only have limited experience of recruitment but I can safely say that both David and Paul come into the category of “barely eligible but suitable” – with the right sort of help. And that’s how Goliath got his comeuppance.
>Capricorny
>Another decade. Another year – and for me another birthday (that’s quite a collection now. I wonder whether the combination of birthday and New Year is very helpful to the Capricorn mentality. New Year is a time for resolution and for looking forward to times ahead. It comes after the difficult days between Christmas and New Year which are days of lethargy. Capricorns, apparently love to climb mountains (the mountain goat) – and where none exist one will be created. Life can be lived under our own effort too much – maybe we take oursleves too seriously as a result.
So here’s a resolution to go alongside all the others I have failed with – to focus on the grace of God and his love, and to remember that if there are any mountains to be climbed I don’t go alone. That could make it a birthday to remember – a turning point.
Quentin Crisp
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I didn’t know till tonight that Sting’s Englishman in New York was a celebration of Quentin Crisp. Englishman in New York was the title of tonight’s moving ITV sequel to The Naked Civil Servant about Quentin Crisp’s life in New York. Crisp, played again by John Hurt, comes across as a man of great integrity. As a homosexual “who wore make up in London in the 30’s” he was always an outsider – and despised. His commitment to “being himself”, together with his wit, made him a celebrity figure in New York where he was in great demand as a public speaker.
In a question and answer session at his swansong at a gay club in Tampa, Florida, he comes up with a real pearl of wisdom:
Neither look forward where there is doubt, nor backward where there is regret. Look inward and ask yourself not if there is anything out in the world that you want and had better grab quickly before nightfall, but whether there is anything inside you that you have not yet unpacked.
The quote was prefaced with remarks about the privilege of being the scorned outsider – not as something to be avoided but as something to be embraced. As a privileged insider I wonder how wise his advice is:
In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.
I am sure that the wisdom of wise outsiders like Quentin Crisp have helped many people on the outside to “be themselves” instead of selling themselves short.
As Sting writes:
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile,
Be yourself no matter what they say.
>Counting Hairs
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I am increasingly involved in preaching as a listener these days. Trevor Dennis, Canon at Chester Cathedral, began his sermon this morning by reminding us of God who “counts up my groaning; put my tears into your bottle” (Psalm 56:8) and who numbers even the vary hairs of our head (Matthew 10:30). What was Jesus meaning? Surely he was reassuring his followers that they were/are precious to God. Jesus spent most of his time with people who were on the fringe of society – who didn’t count and were not regarded by the people of power. These people counted very much with Jesus – each one of them (again expressed in the Parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15).
Referring to the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, Trevor Dennis made the point that no longer can we regard God’s love as just for us humans. If he cares for us so much that he even counts the hairs of our head, then according to Trevor, he counts the feathers of a bird, the scales of the fish and the grain of the sand – so that the whole of his creation is treasured and loved by him. It therefore matters a lot that so many species are on the edge of extinction.
Here’s evidence from the Metereological Office of how temperatures have been rising over the decades, with temperatures of the last decade being the highest for 160 years.
The photo is of a “tear glass” used to collect tears of happiness or sadness. The store was kept for remembrance either of grief or happiness.
>Backtracking
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Thank you, friend Julia for last night’s question – “are you still blogging?” – a painful dig in the ribs and reminder of former passion before going off the track – off the rails – whatever. The dig in the ribs brought a 5 o’clock wake up call to get back on track by backtracking.
What has happened? Well we have moved. Does that count? I suppose it counts more for some than it does for others. For a parish priest it counts a lot especially if it’s a completely different track to tread. The present track is an ordinary one – well worn by so many others. It is an anonymous track that is remarkably unremarkable. The path of the parish priest is a path less trod which verges on celebrity status and power walking.
The running stopped with the blogging. Former routes were all part of a plan for the sense of achievement of the Chester half marathon (at my age!)- there are new tracks, but they seem so insecure mainly because of the dogs.
For the moment – let’s say “I am back on track” – tentatively and lacking confidence. Was the suggestion of a reader over my shoulder the spur I needed? Those readers have gone and remain part of a track that became too deeply rutted for me to travel any further. We parted company resigning my identity of addresses – email, phone – and that driveway I should have so resented. Let’s say I am back on a new track – a pioneer in a wilderness – with this as an opportunity to reflect on a way ahead – spiritual journalling revisited, not as Jogger but as Foxtrotter – ready to explore Lightmoments and grateful that the dislocation was no more painful than it was. It’s a road less travelled – for me anyway.
Thank you Julia. And thank you Fergal OP for the photo – two roads diverged in a yeallow wood.
“Though I speak with the tongues of humans and angels, and even have interactive Applets embedded in my PowerPoints, but have not pedagogy, I am become as sounding brass and a clanging cymbal”
Steve Delamarter et al Teaching Theology and Religion, 2007, vol 10 no.2, pp. 64-79
>Preaching warning
>”The pressure on the preacher is to be topical and contemporary, to speak out like the prophets against injustice and unrighteousness, and it is right that he sh…ould do so, crucial even, and if he does not goad to righteous action he fails both God and man. But he must remember the ones he is speaking to who beneath all the clothes they wear are the poor, bare, forked animals who labor and are heavy laden under the burden of their own lives let alone of the world’s tragic life.”
Frederick Beuchner – telling the truth
Ethics of education
“When we deal with ethics in education (and often we ignore it altogether), we approach it as a matter of helping individuals develop standards for personal behaviour. Not only do we stress personal at the expense of communal ethics: deeper still, we ignore the fact that the presence, or absence of communal imagery at every level of teaching and learning can form, or deform, students for life in the world. We underestimate the hidden curriculum of ethics that is being taught in classrooms even – and perhaps especially – when ethics is not the formal topic.”
Grits and Grains 