Reflections and Photographs: April 2013

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Pondering the John Piper mosaic at St Paul's, Harlow

The arts can... re-educate the modern reader of the Bible to read more richly - more traditionally but simultaneously more creatively - than they would otherwise do. They bequeath to us some wonderful exercises in contemplative dwelling in the Bible: inspiring models...
Ben Quash, Abiding. He also explores other aspects of 'abiding' cp. John 15
- place (the community of the parish church)
- care, which is closely related to presence;
- relationships; and
- exile;
as well as exploring abiding wounds and peace.
Most, if not all, explorations of 'abiding' I have come across explore it from a devotional, individual perspective. Ben Quash's approach is much richer, and perhaps gets closer to the sense that John intended, by widening the perspective. Thus he helps relate Jesus exhortation to 'consider the flowers of the field' of Matthew 6 to 'abiding'. Jesus is here dwelling on, I suggest, the art and craft of the Father, as seen through nature.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

How to Grieve at Ceremonial Funerals

As our nation debates and focuses on the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, are we all missing something?
Towering over us all is the fact of death. The stream of death takes all our leaders and us all in its wake. 100 years from now none of us reading this will be here. Be we Christian or non-Christian, most have an awe, a fear, of death (though I have met one person who told me, and I believed him, that he takes death in a very matter or fact way, and I guess others must do too).
This reality is what those who protest are in danger of ignoring (and hear me out before drawing a conclusion). Let us be angry at death. It destroys what D B Hart refers to as the "fabulous, unverifiable Christian insistence upon the infinite dignity of every soul and the infinite value of every life".
But this reality is no less ignored by those who draw too hasty conclusions as to the 'Thatcher years', be they positive or negative. Talk of statues, the huge debt we owe, and much besides... It is not a question of whether these things are right or wrong, whether her legacy be good or bad. The issue is that it is inappropriate at this point.
For towering over us all is the fact of death. Death has done its black work, as it will do for us all. In the light of it, we must all grieve, all stand with those who mourn (speaking only of 'respect' for the death is sub-Christian - Christian compassion means that we will want to share in grief at any loss). Death says that all our judgments are provisional. We stand as Lego figures in the great stream of history. Who dare make any final judgment?
For the Christian, death itself is a message. On the Cross, Christ conquered this black dog. There is Resurrection in Christ, but the way of Resurrection is the way of the Cross: humility, grief, reflection, pain, change. Let no-one hijack death to their own ends. Death will not and does not allow it.
I have been very struck by the dignity of Margaret Thatcher's family in the midst of the political debate and turmoil. It is as if they know that all the politics is irrelevant. They have more important things to do - to grieve. And they are absolutely right. Let us all follow their example.
It is God who will make the final judgment, some of which will be revealed as history unfolds. I suspect the service at St Paul's Cathedral, based around the Book of Common Prayer (as requested I think by Mrs Thatcher), will make this very clear.