Our young people and children gave us a superb weekend. On Saturday it was 'Tea at the Savoy'. Savoy style tea served in a Savoy style way. On Sunday our two groups (St Mary's and St Paul's) planned and led both services.
I'm presently thinking towards a Civic Service when the theme will be 'children'. I've been pondering Jesus' words in Matthew 18 and 19. Though most sermons focus on the qualities of children we should develop I have never been over-struck by this approach. Children aren't, for example, especially humble or simple.
What strikes me is that Jesus commends childlikeness in all that it means. Dependant, rebellious, fearful, playing, and so much more. As children we will be all of these things - 'children' of our heavenly Father, just as the disciples were.
Perhaps at the root is dependence. Children are objectively that - even if they don't realise it some (much?) of the time.
Rowan Williams writes of how we need to protect children from early adulthood. They need space where they can play at adulthood without over-much responsibility. In that way they grow into it.
So, children grow up, and we need to grow down and learn to be children again.
I'm all for getting younger!
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Thank you to Jonathan Evens... Between: Art as prophecy and dialogue
Thank you to Jonathan for this, especially as we are meeting today to talk about art in the parish...
Between: Art as prophecy and dialogue: "I've just read an excellent post by the Indian artist and theologian Jyoti Sahi entitled 'Dialogue and the Imagination' . I heard Jyoti spe..."
Jonathan links to: JYOTI ART ASHRAM,
who there writes, "The creative work of a Faith .... is not just about incarnation, or embodiment, but is directed towards human transformation, change, and Resurrection. Faith in that sense, is the imagination; it is a way of seeing another reality, and working towards its realization."
Between: Art as prophecy and dialogue: "I've just read an excellent post by the Indian artist and theologian Jyoti Sahi entitled 'Dialogue and the Imagination' . I heard Jyoti spe..."
Jonathan links to: JYOTI ART ASHRAM,
who there writes, "The creative work of a Faith .... is not just about incarnation, or embodiment, but is directed towards human transformation, change, and Resurrection. Faith in that sense, is the imagination; it is a way of seeing another reality, and working towards its realization."
Monday, 20 June 2011
Quote for the Day
"We don't know enough about the unknown to know that it is unknowable." - G K Chesterton
Saturday, 18 June 2011
"Clean the Windows"
... Not a note from my To Do list, but given to the Church Council as we met for our Awayday last Saturday.
"Clean the Windows", so that others may see in to our lives and see a Community that is different, that is holy. And so that we look outwards into the wider world, and God's call.
It strikes me today how much Bishop Stephen's words in his Pentecost letter, say something very similar. "[W]e need to be a people of prayer. We need to let our relationship with God in Christ shape our lives so that the way we live day to day is distinctively Christian. This isn't easy. We live in a beguiling and seductive world. Often our lives seem indistinguishable from everyone else's. We need to let the faith we celebrate on Sunday overflow into the lives we live on Monday".
This also links into our planned focus for the Autumn on onwards, seeking to learn how to 'mentor' one another in the Christian lives. This will help us get in Good Shape. In the new year we are looking towards studying a course called "Shape'. This helps us all think about God's call to us - what Shape we should be, in all of life.
May our Lord be guiding us. This is his work; but we are worker's together with him in his kingdom.
And a Thought for the Day
"I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of creation. With all respect to heaven, the scene of miracle is here, among us" (quoted in More on Marilynne Robinson by Roger Kimball)
And a Thought for the Day
"I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of creation. With all respect to heaven, the scene of miracle is here, among us" (quoted in More on Marilynne Robinson by Roger Kimball)
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Phil's Treehouse: To make things new that never were
Phil's Treehouse: To make things new that never were: "We name you wind, power, force, and then, imaginatively, ‘Third Person.’ We name you and you blow… blow hard, blow cold, blow hot, blo..."
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Between: New Statesman and Big Society
Between: New Statesman and Big Society: "This latest edition of the New Statesman has been guest-edited by Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams , and has managed to put the..."
Having read something of what Archbishop Rowan actually said, as against what he is said to have said, a breath of fresh air from Phil Ritchie here:
http://philipstreehouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/rowan-round-up.html
The New Statesman article majors on a very real concern for the gospel - fear. References to policies for which we didn't vote etc., and to cynicism about the Big Society are not criticisms but factual observations. He points out the lack of public debate about key issues at the last election. There is discussion as to what priorities there should be. It strikes me as a thoughtful well-timed intervention.
Eliot's The Wasteland contrasts (I think!) the fragmentary culture of his day with the prophetic questioning of the Old Testament prophets. Here we have some genuine questioning.
Having read something of what Archbishop Rowan actually said, as against what he is said to have said, a breath of fresh air from Phil Ritchie here:
http://philipstreehouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/rowan-round-up.html
The New Statesman article majors on a very real concern for the gospel - fear. References to policies for which we didn't vote etc., and to cynicism about the Big Society are not criticisms but factual observations. He points out the lack of public debate about key issues at the last election. There is discussion as to what priorities there should be. It strikes me as a thoughtful well-timed intervention.
Eliot's The Wasteland contrasts (I think!) the fragmentary culture of his day with the prophetic questioning of the Old Testament prophets. Here we have some genuine questioning.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
The Emmaus Road
Have read (well, skipped!, must delve deeper) Salley Vickers', The Other Side of You, in preparation for a sermon. An interesting article by her, also relating to the Emmaus Road of Luke 24 (and Eliot's The Wasteland) here:
http://www.salleyvickers.com/pages/books/the_other_side_of_you.htm
If we take her insights to a higher key (they actually did see the Lord), what insights does this gives into this key passage in Luke?
From here:
http://www.caxtonclub.org/reading/2001/Feb2001/musings.
(by Robert Cotner) we can learn how Eliot referred in The Waste Land to Shackleton (on whom I did something of a project some years ago). I quote from the site (but the whole article is worth reading):
"The link between poetry and exploration came full circle for Shackleton in the year of his death, 1922, of a heart attack in South Georgia as he was about to begin another trip to Antarctica. T. S. Eliot, in "The Waste Land," a poem which many consider to be the hallmark poem of that era, wrote:
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
Eliot’s footnotes attributed this passage to Shackleton’s South (1920), in which, as Eliot wrote, "at the extremity of their strength, [they] had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted." This "Fourth Person," as it came to be called in Shackleton’s writings, was the conscious presence of another being among the three explorers as they hiked the uncharted, never-before-traveled winter mountains in gale-force winds and knee-deep snows of South Georgia, on the last leg of the journey to save their marooned colleagues. This mystical experience, Shackleton wrote, must always be a part of the "record of our journeys."
By virtue of his unstinting love of his fellow men, Shackleton repeatedly gave up his dreams and risked his life to insure their safety and well-being. As an explorer, it seems to me, we should call him intrepid; as a leader, undaunted, as a person, perhaps, St. Ernest."
Can this give us insight into the book of Hebrews as well?
http://www.salleyvickers.com/pages/books/the_other_side_of_you.htm
If we take her insights to a higher key (they actually did see the Lord), what insights does this gives into this key passage in Luke?
From here:
http://www.caxtonclub.org/reading/2001/Feb2001/musings.
(by Robert Cotner) we can learn how Eliot referred in The Waste Land to Shackleton (on whom I did something of a project some years ago). I quote from the site (but the whole article is worth reading):
"The link between poetry and exploration came full circle for Shackleton in the year of his death, 1922, of a heart attack in South Georgia as he was about to begin another trip to Antarctica. T. S. Eliot, in "The Waste Land," a poem which many consider to be the hallmark poem of that era, wrote:
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
Eliot’s footnotes attributed this passage to Shackleton’s South (1920), in which, as Eliot wrote, "at the extremity of their strength, [they] had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted." This "Fourth Person," as it came to be called in Shackleton’s writings, was the conscious presence of another being among the three explorers as they hiked the uncharted, never-before-traveled winter mountains in gale-force winds and knee-deep snows of South Georgia, on the last leg of the journey to save their marooned colleagues. This mystical experience, Shackleton wrote, must always be a part of the "record of our journeys."
By virtue of his unstinting love of his fellow men, Shackleton repeatedly gave up his dreams and risked his life to insure their safety and well-being. As an explorer, it seems to me, we should call him intrepid; as a leader, undaunted, as a person, perhaps, St. Ernest."
Can this give us insight into the book of Hebrews as well?
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Great poem
Great poem by Malcolm Guite posted by Phil today:
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Rethinking Spiritual Growth
Rethinking Progress
"Our hard work, therefore, means coming to a greater understanding of his work. As I mentioned a few posts ago, in his Lectures on Romans Martin Luther wrote, “To progress is always to begin again.” Real spiritual progress, in other words, requires a daily going backwards." -Tullian Tchiviidjian
"Our hard work, therefore, means coming to a greater understanding of his work. As I mentioned a few posts ago, in his Lectures on Romans Martin Luther wrote, “To progress is always to begin again.” Real spiritual progress, in other words, requires a daily going backwards." -Tullian Tchiviidjian
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Phil's Treehouse: Consider
Phil's Treehouse: Consider: "I first came across this picture Consider the Lillies by Stanley Spencer when Stephen Cottrell (now Bishop of Chelmsford) led a meditatio..."
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