a ministry scrapbook
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Woollies bolted and barred.
Shop assistants scattered to the four winds of recession,
names lost for ever in statistical sand.
Just jelly babies left
in their plastic cells
like powder-coated Hannibal Lecters.
All is not fair in Pick’n’Mix
when cell mates gums and roses
get their cut price freedom
and just jelly babies are left.
Just jelly babies.
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It was an Edinburgh New Year for us with our son and partner. It was good to relax with them – though it wasn’t so relaxing at the Princes Street party. What was moving was New Year’s Day at St John’s Church where we were all invited to confess/dispose of our shame of ’08. Everyone had something to dispose of in the liturgical waste basket – which was then set alight (I bet the Church Council hadn’t discussed that!) and did its dance as the most perfectly formed flame – then drenched in water (?baptism) – and the consequential smoke rising in prayer for a new beginning.
We sang words from Desmond Tutu.
We prayed:
Come Father,
Come Mother,
Come Lord Jesus
Come Holy Spirit of God
Give us for our hallowing
thoughts that pass into prayer
Prayer that passes into love,
and love that passes into action.
And we prayed:
May the blessed sun shine on us and warm each heart till it glows like a great fire, so that strangers and friends may come in and warm themselves. May the light shine out from our eyes, like a candle set in the windows of a house, and may the risen Lord bless us and bless us kindly.
But most of all, we were quiet – enjoying this public space of Edinburgh into which some people had had the care to invite us.
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Christmas is not about tinsel and mistletoe or even ornaments and presents, but aabout what means we will use toward the end of a peace from heaven upon our earth. Or is “peace on earth” but a Christmas ornament taken each year from attic or basement and returned there as soon as possible?
Marcus J Borg and John Dominic Crossan in The First Christmas reviewed here. Borg and Crossan underline the subversion of the Christmas stories – subverting the political cultures of Roman imperial power. Both Jesus and Caesar share many titles – among them “Lord” and “Son of God” and both have a vision for peace on earth. The difference is that one is “peace through victory” and the other is “peace through justice” – and Borg and Crossan remark (what we all know)
“the terrible truth is that our world has never established peace trhough victory. Victory establishes not peace but lull. Thereafter, violence returns once again, and always worse than before.”
If we are to defeat the mosquitoes of terrorism we must drain the swamps of poverty and despair, which result in the stones of anger, hatred and violence.
Rt Rev Peter Price in his maiden speech to the House of Lords in which he expressed fear that the church is obsessed with its own internal agenda
We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? Then, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.
Meister Eckhart (14th century)
“According to ancient Christian writers, God waits for Mary’s yes; creation waits; Adam and Eve wait, the dead in the underworld wait; the angels wait; and so do we. With Mary’s yes, hope is enlivened and history is changed. There is an unimaginable future for all people, a future that comes from God. All nations assemble in justice, compassion and gratitude. Salvation is created among us, and the fate of history is altered by a godly presence. This salvation resides in the hearts of those who believe in the gift and who stay awake eagerly to know it is coming. With David we await it, with the nations we long for it, and with Mary we behold it.”
Dianne Bergant
Everyone seems very excited about the prospect of Hallelujah being the Christmas number 1 – with X Factor winner Alexandra – or is Hallelujah going to be number 1 and 2. It is if the campaign of the facebook Jeff Buckley for Xmas No 1 (backed by Edith Bowman and Colin Murray) works.
It is indeed a beautiful song. Opinion seems to be going with John Cale’s version and Jeff Buckley’s being the best, but I like Allison Crowe’s as well. Leonard’s own version too is brilliant but has taken on a life of its own.
What is not clear is what the song means. For me, it’s definitely not a straight “praise” song inspite of all the “Hallelujahs”. That it seemed such an appropriate end to the X Factor series – and an appropriate “victory song” for Alexandra to sing back up what I see Leonard Cohen alluding to. Using Old Testament references to David, Bathsehba and Delilah, Cohen puts the praise response of Hallelujah on the lips and loin of pleasure – as well the hearts and minds of worship, and that when we come face to face with God we will have to trust that he will accept our “broken hallelujahs”.
Here are the lyrics anyway – see what you think.
Homecomings [for the Christmas holidays], whether they are to church or family households, can be filled with expectation and met with disappointment. Cynthia Jarvis touches on these painful places in the human heart, “conditions … made acute by the culture’s merriment: the relationships severed, the addictions hidden, the violence barely domesticated, the depression denied, the affair raging, the self-loathing cut deep into the flesh, the greed, the hatred, the fear.”
from Kate Huey in Weekly Seeds
>How loud should we sing?
That was the question of a group of singers.
The reply: “so that you can hear the voice of your neighbour”.
How loud should we live?
Not so loud that we drown out the voice of our neighbour.
And who is my neighbour?
Everyone has a voice,
but not everyone’s voice is heard.
Children, gays, women, disabled, vanquished and victim
raise their voices, create disturbance.
Desparate voices breaking the silence
challenging the harmonies of the old song lines.
The sounds echo in controversy
as loud chatter decides to reject or accept the discord.
But I have not found a voice for the old lady fading away
unnoticed in a corner of a cul-de-sac,
nor heard the sound of Congolese children.
I dread to hear what they sound like
when the soldiers enter their village.
The rocks, pebbles and sand squeezing into the jar helped me to re-think priorities and time management. The only problem is the emphasis is still on squeezing things in, which still sounds and seems uncomfortable.
I was interested in what our architect Robin Wolley had to say about our church at Duddon. “There’s no space” – it is a craetion of the Victorian age and mindset. We knew that because we had tried the swinging the cat test and it wouldn’t. He went on to explain from our contemporary more minimalist mindset that the important thing in architecture is designing space around the objects. Aha. A light bulb moment.
Trying to juggle responsibilities and priorities – think about them architecturally. Set up the rocks (the important architectural features of my life) – things like prayer, pastoral care, preaching, personal study/learning/development – and give them space, which I will call “frame of mind”. That frame of mind gives me space to walk around the features, see them from different viewpoints and reassess the arrangement of the furniture.
Why did the Victorians leave so little space? Why sit people in rows? Is it to do with controlling people and leaving them no space for their personal initiative. They were after all Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin) and Hard Times (Charlie Dickens). It was perhaps the same mindset which thought busyness a virtue and probably dreamt up the proverb “the devil makes work for idle hands”.
Grits and Grains 