Someone I know

...has got herself a Blue Peter badge.

Well done, Iola!

Mary Oliver: Messenger (from 'Thirst')

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Mary Oliver: Thirst

For some time, the volume 'Thirst' by Mary Oliver has been on my Amazon wish list. I don't remember how I first read about these poems but whatever I read made me wish for them, in that Amazonian way. I searched online and found her poem 'A Visitor' and felt this was a poet I could happily spend time with.

Well, today, I bought the slim volume of poems (in Borders, not Amazon) and have been astonished at my good fortune: seldom, if ever, have I felt such immediate rapport with a poet and with poetry.

Drinking good coffee in the Borders' Starbucks, reading the first poem or two, was an absolute delight, a luxuriating moment.

Here are poems to savour slowly.

ambidextrous

She said
I was wrong;

I thought
I was right.

So I
left her

to choose
the way.

Time to choose

Can Sundays
be fun days
if they precede
Mondays?
I'd rather choose
Tuesday
as follow-on to
Sunday.
But what then
of Monday?

Wednesday
needs its
own space
and Thursday
its own grace
in the race
to Saturday.
It ought not
be replaced.

Try next to
Friday
but grieve not
that the weeks
seem simply
to fly by
these days.

A different take

on the Beatitudes from Scot McKnight:

The Beatitudes are normally misunderstood as a list of virtues. The Beatitudes are not, however, a virtue list: they are a list of the kinds of people in the society Jesus maps for his listeners. Those who are responding to his kingdom vision are the poor and the hungry, those who weep and those who are despised by the powerful - and those who are not responding are the rich, the well-fed, the party-prone and those who are approved by such powerful folks. No, this is not a virtue list but a sociopolitical statement:the work of God in Jesus and through the kingdom is to include the marginalized, to render judgement on the powerful, and to create around the marginalized (with Jesus at the centre) an alternative society where things are (finally, by God) put to rights. Here we come into a vision of the kingdom of God on the part of Jesus that is an extension of the Magnificat and the Benedictus and Jesus' inaugral address.

McKnight, A Community Called Atonement, p.12

Best teacher meme

I got tagged by Alan Davey to report my best 5 teachers. Here we go:

1. All-time tops would have to be Mr Curwen who taught us Latin in Ysgol Penrallt and Ysgol Glan-Y-Mor in Pwllheli. He achieved the impossible: gave (me, at least) a love of that dead language. He used to throw pieces of chalk about the room and shout at people a great deal but was deeply-liked and respected by us.

2. Staying with Glan-Y-Mor, I have an abiding affection for Mr Maldwyn Jones, our Maths teacher. He insisted we used ink pens and is therefore solely responsible for the way this leftie's handwriting style developed. I loved Maths and I loved the way he taught it.

3. Mr Trevor Kelk, English teacher at Hutton Grammar School, Preston. I had Trev for English 'O' and 'A' levels and he was a breath of fresh air (quite a feat for a man who smoked as much as he did). He encouraged us to explore the meaning and the power of the literature we studied and to experience it for ourselves. Thanks, Trev.

4. At ETCW we had a bunch of great lecturers - Iwan Rhys Jones, whose description of the furtive pathach will live in the memory forever; Dr Gibbard and his delight in all things Welsh; Dr Gledhill and his wearied distrust of cant (I have no idea what he thought of Kant, however); Tom Holland, who taught me to ask questions and rightly gave me my lowest essay mark at college; Trevor Burke, who exemplified humility and showed its attractivness and indispensibility. Naming one would be unfair, so please forgive me: from Peter Milsom, at ETCW and then together in ministry: the ways of grace.

5. Last, but certainly not least, Mrs Janice Montague who taught Law at Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic in the 1980s. She was stunningly beautiful and wore the most attractive spectacles; Tim Gray and I used to sit mesmerised through her lectures and seminars. She was the sole reason I chose to take the Law module in my final year.

a happy holiday

Unbroken blue skies for the whole week - what an amazing gift from God!

Spent time in and around Harlech, Porthmadoc, Beddgelert, Borth Y Gest, Portmeirion and Llanbedr (where my Dad worked during the 70's).

Here's our snaps....

the shame of sin

We read Graham Greene's The Power and The Glory for 'A' level English Literature. I just picked it up again today at the library, in readiness for a week's holiday. Skimming through it briefly, this passage caught my eye and made me glad for the opportunity to re-read this book about the compromised whiskey priest and the calloused lietenant. Greene's sense of the struggle that sin is was acute.

He lifted little pink eyes like those of a pig conscious of the slaughter-room. A high child's voice said, 'Jose.' He stared in a bewildered way around the patio. At a barred window opposite three children watched him with deep gravity. He turned his back and took a step or two towards his door, moving very slowly because of his bulk. 'Jose,' somebody squeaked again. 'Jose.' He looked back over his shoulder and caught the faces out in expressions of wild glee; his little pink eyes showed no anger - he had no right to be angry: he moved his mouth into a ragged, baffled, disintegrated smile, and as if that sign of weakness gave them all the licence they needed, they squealed back at him without disguise, 'Jose, Jose. Come to bed, Jose.' Their little shameless voices filled the patio, and he smiled humbly and sketched small gestures for silence, and there was no respect anywhere left for him in his home, in the town, in the whole abandoned star.

taking it whole

Have it your way, someone said. And you can. Take albums, for instance. No longer do we have to suffer the weaker tracks, the songs that bore us and leave us drifting. No need to lift the stylus and replace it gingerly, hoping not to scratch the precious vinyl. No need to press ff and guess where the next track starts. No need to press 'skip' on the CD remote. Just don't bother downloading the track in the first place. Don't rip it; don't burn it. Just ditch it.

But those tracks are part of the treasure because they give the context for the songs you love more than anything else. They help to tell the story, the whole story, even if you aren't listening to a concept album from the heady days of the 70's. We need the fullness. That struck me again whilst listening to Ohio by Over The Rhine. It's a sprawling double-album that is studded with songs that are more than fine; there are also weaker pieces that I often skip over. But taking it whole I realised that mixing and matching was robbing me of the larger canvas of ideas and the need and opportunity to respond to lesser material, even while being drawn more tightly into the finer moments.

Of course I'll still listen to isolated tracks and maybe even play them shuffled. But maybe I need to make time, too, to listen to the whole artistic expression because the artist has something to say. And I won't get it by ipodding them into a parody of Norman Collier.

And listening to the whole might do other things, too. Teach me patience and tolerance. Allow time to uncover gems that only surface on repeated listenings. Gems of rare quality that instant karma cannot yield. To learn the rhythms of life where moments of joy are couched within the lesser. Diamonds in the dark and in the gloom and in the partial light of days undawned.

credit where it's due?

I think that I can safely say that the Judeo-Christian Bible is a self-help book that has probably enabled more people to make more extensive and intensive personality and behavioral changes than all professional therapists combined.

So said 'strident atheist' and pioneer-psychotherapist Albert Ellis in 1993.

Source: Mark McMinn, Psychology, Theology and Spirituality in Christian Counselling, Tyndale 1996.

Two

years passed
since your
passing;
since the moment
your life
ceased
with a final
lunge;
since the loosed
departure
into a void
not seen
and your presence
lost.

Two years of days
and hours
and minutes
and seconds
and breaths
and beats
that never belonged
to you.

Too long
years.


(for Dad)

writing about grace

I have spent a good deal of my adult life trying to understand grace. Most of this has been through the routines of life - marriage, studying, prayer, parenting, worship, reading, and friendship. Many years ago I devoted some of my routine to writing a book about grace. No one has seen or heard of the book since, and though I have quite a knack for authoring books that no one ever hears of, there is a good explanation in this case. The book was never published. I sent my two-hundred-fifty-page manuscript to several different publishers, and each of them responded with a permutation of the standard "thanks, but no thanks" letter.

Fifteen years later, I am grateful that book was never published. It was a book produced by an overachieving young assistant professor who was committed to routine but had not yet had enough moments of insight to write about grace. It was a book written before I began to grasp the depth of brokenness and sin in our world and in my own heart. Understanding grace cannot be done without understanding sin. Sometimes I ponder what that unpublished book, with its anemic view of grace, would have been titled if it had been published. Perhaps, Grace Lite or Grace: Because I'm Worth It or Grace: I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me.

In the intervening fifteen years I have continued to experience occasional punctuating moments - windows of insight - that have brought fresh glimpses of grace. They are not altogether pleasant moments because they are always accompanied with a weighty, breath-stealing awareness of my sin and my desperate need for forgiveness. But they are motivating. It is the second of two such punctuating moments that finally gave me the courage to write this book.

(Why Sin Matters by Mark McMinn, pp.2,3; Tyndale 2004)

When the big boys come calling....

Mike Rohde, we salute ya.

The Last Of The Peasantry

What does he know? moving through the fields
And the wood's echoing cloisters
With a beast's gait, hunger in his eyes
Only for what the flat earth supplies;
His wisdom dwindled to a small gift
For handling stock, planting a few seeds
To ripen slowly in the warm breath
Of an old God to whom he never prays.

Moving through the fields, or still at home,
Dwarfed by his shadow on the bright wall,
His face is lit always from without,
The sun by day, the red fire at night;
Within is dark and bare, the grey ash
Is cold now, blow on it as you will.

(R. S. Thomas)

praying for missionaries

We all need help in praying for others. The prayers in the Bible are a great help and so are the requests for prayer we find there. In Romans 15:30-32, Paul asks for prayer, as he often did. He urges the Roman believers, “by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit” to join him in his struggle by praying to God for him. To pray for others honours the Lordship of Jesus and is an act of love prompted by the Holy Spirit. To pray for others is also to struggle with and for them, as Paul knows. It is a partnership in hard work!

What exactly is the nature of the struggle in Paul’s situation? He says it is twofold. Going to Jerusalem, he needs to be “rescued from the unbelievers in Judea”. Gospel ministry always involves this struggle. It is a frequent, urgent prayer request of many missionaries. The world has not changed in 2000 years and neither has the nature of the struggle. It is not a battle against flesh and blood but it is often manifested through flesh and blood. We must pray for protection and safety.

Paul is also concerned that his “service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there”. Here is a less obvious yet no less real and urgent need for prayer. It is a request that still carries weight for missionaries today.

Paul was taking much needed financial help to the suffering church in Jerusalem, a gift from the Gentile churches. What could possibly be difficult about such a ministry? Why does he fear that his service might prove to be unacceptable? At least two features of the situation may give rise to his concern.

First, there is the history of Paul’s persecution of the church before his conversion and the suspicion of him that followed. He had caused much suffering and the memory of it may still be sharp in many hearts.

We know that we are to forgive as the Lord forgave us, but knowing it is one thing, doing it is another thing entirely. Maybe Paul is simply being realistic in terms of the struggle many of us have with forgiving and forgetting. And it may be that missionaries today encounter suspicion among those they seek to serve because of past failures. Perhaps mistakes made in the early days of ministry are still remembered and poison present fellowship. We need to pray that God will grant healing in such situations.

But it may be that what Paul is most conscious of is that for many Jewish believers something of the old Jew-Gentile divide still exists. Receiving a gift from the Gentile churches may be hard to swallow, because it will mean swallowing their pride. Paul’s approach will need to combine a sensitivity that doesn’t pander to the pride of others with a boldness that doesn’t brutalise their sensibilities. No wonder he is asking for prayer!

Our friends need such prayer too. They need grace to serve national churches with wisdom and humility, without any of the negative overtones of paternalism. They need grace to deal with situations that witness more to old divisions than to the unity of the Spirit. We need to pray that their service may be “acceptable to the saints”.

They also serve...

It’s a moving story. The great poet John Milton finally lost his sight and then was bereaved of his wife. In the trauma of that first loss, he penned the sonnet ‘On His Blindness’ in which he reflects on the parable of the talents in the light of his own circumstances. He expresses in the poem his sense of frustration and perplexity over how the Lord could allow this enforced idleness, “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

Many will be able to sympathise with his feelings. In Psalm 42, the writer expresses great heaviness of heart and cries out, “Why are you downcast, oh my soul?”. Life had taken a turn for the worse and part of the anxiety and pain were the memories he had of serving God: “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God.” (v.4). Those times now seemed so long ago and so far away.

As we go through similar times, it’s good to recall that ultimately we are not defined by what we do. Of course, how we serve the Lord is important. Our gifts allow us to express who we are in relationship with him and our gratitude for his grace. But they don’t define us. We are not in the first instance called to serve but “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6). That clearly involves service but it is not limited to it. Significantly, Adam and Eve’s first full day in Eden was a Sabbath on which they rested in the Lord who had made them. They were created to belong to him and that holds true in the new creation too.

Part of our struggle over this may be because we view service too narrowly. John Milton wrestled with his difficulties and resolved them, declaring “They also serve who only stand and wait”. We too quickly limit what serving God means. We define it in terms of activity but Milton had grasped the profound truth that it depends not on action for its vitality but on the attitude of the heart. Serving God is fundamentally concerned with a response to his grace that recognises and rejoices in the Lordship of Christ over the whole of life.

Yes, Jesus is Lord, even over all our infirmities. The Lord who is sovereign can use us just as he will. His purposes are not thwarted when our gifts are limited through age or infirmity, nor are his purposes overtaken by events beyond our control. Paul had grasped this as he languished in a Roman prison. Despite the curtailing of his ‘active service’ he was still rejoicing in the Lord’s ability to use his circumstances and even the wrong motives of others to further the cause of Christ (Phil. 1:12-18). We may feel chained by age or circumstances but “God’s Word is not chained” (2 Tim. 2:9) and by his Spirit he can still use us to herald the name of Jesus, in our sufferings, through our prayers.

The God we serve called light out of darkness and made all things from nothing. Out of the ‘nothing’ of our limitations and frailties, he can fashion something lasting and good to glorify his Son. It’s interesting that Milton’s greatest piece of work, Paradise Lost, was written after his blindness. And the greatest work in all history was declared ‘Finished!’ when all had seemed lost and the Suffering Servant forsaken by God. His ways are much higher than ours.

quoting the quoted

In order to be able to assume the responsibility for other people’s growth, leaders must themselves have grown to true maturity and inner freedom. They must not be locked up in a prison of illusion or selfishness, and they must have allowed others to guide them...

We can only command if we know how to obey. We can only be a leader if we know how to be a servant. We can only be a mother—or a father—figure if we are conscious of ourselves as a daughter or a son. Jesus is the Lamb before the He is the Shepherd. His authority comes from the Father; He is the beloved Son of the Father.

Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, 1989 - quoted on Out of Ur.

poetry, questions and answers

Yann Martel has been sending books to the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (see here). Along with the books, he writes letters and in one letter he makes this observation about poems:

The marvel of poetry is that it can be as short as a question yet as powerful as an answer.

How well said, Mr Martel. And happy reading, Mr Harper.

vulnerability: haiku #1

To admit you're vulnerable
is strong and not weak;
it shivers the backs of men.