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A beautiful Sunday morning in April!
>Snow surprise
>A change of clothes
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I was wondering what to wear over my fig leaf this morning, when I came across this morning’s reading with Paul telling me to clothe myself with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” – I’ve got a lifetime trying to squeeze myself into them. It’s a bit like Trinny and Susanna’s make-overs.
Then I came across a photo of the Vicar of Much Wenlock striding barefoot through his parish because he wants to follow the fashion set by St Francis. He says it puts him in touch with reality – He said: “I’m not suggesting people go around barefoot. The message is about needing to tread more lightly on the earth.” I remember a news report of a visit of a leader of an aborigine community who described how he had to put shoes on for the first time in his life when he came to Europe. He said how uncomfortable he felt and how he lost his sense of freedom.
I’ll try the compassion, kindness and gentleness outfit, but not bother with the matching accessories. I’ll just wear shoes!
>An old friend
>Friend Jim came by with a quote from the work of Laurens van der Post. I enjoyed his books when I read them. A lovely man, great story-teller and lover of humanity. I particulalry remember reading one of his books on a train journey at a time of bereavement, and remember noticing feeling so much better at the end of the journey. Not many writers can be so inspirational.
The quote:
Jung believed that the unique achievement of Western Europe, particularly Christian Europe, was the creation of the individual who would be sufficiently individual and integrated to take the burdens of his community and the world upon himself, to resist this collectivization of the spirit.- he goes on to say that he felt that it was the failure of this in Germany that allowed Hitler to rise to power unchallenged.
And another one from his intriguing solemn requiem (based on the Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse) by the editor of Feather Fall:
Gradually I have formed the impression, now a certainty, that Laurens van der Post is a member of a vast family which constitutes a community of spirit and heart that has existed throughout our history. Like those wells in the desert that are so difficult to find and so far apart, yet are linked beneath the ground and combine invisibly to quench one’s thirst, this vast and ever growing family of fellow-travellers is the company in which, step by step, century by century, we can all join in the ultimate quest, following the flight of the great white bird of truth, ready in heart and mind for its eventual feather fall.
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence was a film based on two of Laurens’s books which describe his experience asa japanese prisoner of war where he gained a reputation for building up the morale of people of many different nationalities. here’s the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/get_player
>Little and Large
>Size isn’t everything – but it’s important when you’re small fry. We have one parish – two churches – one larger, the other smaller in an unequal partnership. It’s hard for those representing small St Peter’s in any meeting with those representing large St Andrew’s. Attention is invariably focussed on big brother, even though there is a genuine love and regard for little brother.
When big cheese meets small fry, small fry usually feels belittled. But – big BUT -when small fry’s eyes meet God’s s/he wins the prize every time.
So small fry, don’t resent the status of little brother – and big brother BEWARE. “Unless you change and become as a little child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) and “Consider your own calling, friends. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God”. There are so many stories in the Bible where the last is first and the greatest is the least.
Look at big brother and little brother in the story of the prodigal son – big brother is the one who is shut out because of his self-righteous jealousy.
Swing Low Sweet Charity
>Chewing over the phrase “charity begins at home” (it always sticks in my throat!) my mind went to “Swing low sweet charity” (must have been watching too much rugby over the weekend!) Since 1988 Swing Low Sweet Chariot has been the anthem of the England Rugby Union supporters. The song has a long history – from being sung by Afro-Americans to being a pretty obscene drinking song (about which I know so little!)
According to my friend Wikipedia, the song was composed by a native American slave, Wallis Willis around 1862. He also wrote “Steal away to Jesus”. Unbeknown to Rugby Union fans both the songs have hidden references to the Underground Railroad by which many slaves escaped to freedom.
“Swing low” refers to the escape “conductors” going down south to get their “passengers”. “Sweet chariot” was the carriage to “carry me home” to freedom. “Looking over Jordan” refers to the rivers Ohio and Mississippi beyond which is freedom. There was no physical railroad – but the slaves used the language of the railroad as code to help slaves escape. The Underground Railroad consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, safe houses, and assistance provided by abolitionist sympathizers – who were the “conductors”. The churches were involved in this underground movement through which, some estimate, up to 100,000 slaves found their escape.
How many rugby fans are freedom fighters I wonder? It might make them think again if they were to sing the song standing in the shoes and chains of slaves.
Saint Patrick’s Day
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Good to meet friends Roddy Evans and Jim Lynn from Belfast on St Patrick’s Day, 10 years since the Good Friday Agreement. They have come over to take part in a series we have called Living Hope. Both have played their part in the peace process in Northern Ireland and seeing beyond revenge. They are both living hope. Roddy is Anglo-Irish and Jim is Roman Catholic, so I guess what was inspiring was not just their talks but their friendship which is based in their shared membership of the Clonard Bible Study group.
This prayer is supposed to be from St Patrick:
May the Strength of God guide us.
May the Power of God preserve us.
May the Wisdom of God instruct us.
May the Hand of God protect us.
May the Way of God direct us.
May the Shield of God defend us.
May the Angels of God guard us.- Against the snares of the evil one.
May Christ be with us!May Christ be before us!May Christ be in us,Christ be over all! May Thy Grace, Lord,Always be ours,This day, O Lord, and forevermore. Amen.
>Pearls
>Good authors gift us with pearls. Here are some pearls polished and presented by Timothy radcliffe from my reading today – What is the Point of being a Christian?
How about this?
- As fish were made to swim in water, human beings were made to thrive in the truth (p121)
- When Wittgenstein was asked how philosophers should greet each other, he replied ‘Take your time.’ (p123)
- We come to see people as lovable because we see other people loving them. (p124)
and then Radcliffe uses this story. “one day a rabbi asked his students, ‘How can you tell that night has ended and the day is returning? One student suggested, ‘When you can see clearly that an animal in the distance is a lion and not a leopard.’ ‘No’, said the rabbi. ‘It is when you can look on the face of another person and see that woman or man is your sister or brother. Because until you are able to do so, no matter what time of day it is, it is still night.'”
>World Book Day
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When Prince Charming married Cinderella – it was World Book Day. I’ve just waved Jeanette off to her school in her Willie Wonka outfit – no doubt going to see all the oompa-lumpas. It’s World Book Day – when children will be dressing up as characters from well loved books. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody in a costume other than what that is derived from film, which shows how dependant we are on those who can visualise and transfer a character from one media to another. Some schools will be having a bookstall and some will be having authors coming into school.
I wonder what everybody will be reading today in the cafes, tubes or stretched out on the settee. One blogger, Sonya Worthy, spends her time asking people what they’re reading – her blog, People Reading, is a real celebration of books. As for me, I shall be reading more from What is the Point of being a Christian? because I promised myself that for Lent – and today I have already come across this lovely quote from Salman Rushdie’s article Is Nothing Sacred?:
I grew up kissing books and bread. In our house, whenever anyone dropped a book or let fall a chapatti … the fallen object was required not only to be picked up but also kissed, by way of apology for the act of clumsy disrespect. I was a s careless and butter-fingered as any child and, accordingly, during my childhood years, i kissed a large number of ‘slices and also my fair share of books. Devout households in India often contained, and still cotain, persons in the habit of kissing holy books. But we kissed everything. We kissed dictionaries and atlases. We kissed Enid Blyton novels and Superman comics. If i’d ever have dropped the telephone directory I’d probably have kissed that too. All this happened before I ever kissed a girl. In fact it would be true, true enough for a fiction writer, anyhow, to say that once I started kissing girls, my activities with regard to bread and books lost some of their special excitement. But one never forgets one’s first loves. Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul – what could be more worthy of our respect, and even love?
That’s from Granta 31:1990
>Mothering Sunday
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Highlighting Mothering Sunday was a brief encounter with a family I knew in a previous parish. I remember Victoria being born. She is very disabled. I have met her and her wonderful Mum Robina only a few times over the years. Victoria is wheelchair bound and uses sign language. She is so cheerful – yesterday admiring the beard. What an achievement for all the family – fought for not just day by day, but hour by hour for 27 years through I am sure tension, tiredness, anger and frustration. Robina gets my Mothering Sunday prize for “Mum of the Year”. Victoria gets the prize for being the “most cheerful”.
Otherwise friend Ron used Michelangelo’s Pieta when he was preaching about motherhood – the sculpture appealing to him because of mother and child being sculpted from the one piece of marble – which sounds a lot better than “a chip off the old block”.
>Sexuality and lust
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“This is my body which is given for you.” Any Christian worshipper will recognise these words of Jesus by which he declares his love for the world because they are central to the Christian gathering. We meet round the table and celebrate that Jesus gave his body for us. The words are repeated by lovers who give themselves to one another. They could be words used in the marriage service – that would hot things up well wouldn’t it? Tim Radcliffe – in What is the Point of Being a Christian? – underlines the importance of the body in love and sexuality, and in so doing manages to distinguish between love and lust, and between erotic and pornographic art. (Rodin’s kiss is lovely. It’s erotic and it’s good because both partners are lost in their mutual self-giving).
We give ourselves in love. With lust we make of the other an object of desire for our own pleasure. Often the focus of desire is one part of the body, so the object of our desire is dismembered before our very eyes. Interestingly Jesus says “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.” (Matt 5:29) presumably to help us to understand that if we dismember others we ought to dismember ourselves. Radcliffe refers to the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland who wouldn’t let Alice eat the mutton to which she had been introduced. “It isn’t etiquette to eat anyone you’ve been introduced to.” she says.
The cure for lust is not chopping off our hand or plucking out our eye – and it’s good that very few have tested that theory – the first step, according to radcliife’s wise words “is not to abolish desire, but to restore it, liberate it, discover that it is for a person and not an object.”
Grits and Grains 
