the great books (xii) - red bird

Mary Oliver is a recent discovery for me in the world of poetry (I don't keep close tabs on what's going down in that world, I have to say). The first volume of her work I read was Thirst, which also happened to be her first collection of poems that handle a turning to faith in God. But it's her latest work, Red Bird, that I'm choosing for this list.

Her poetry is an absolute delight to me - it's the sort of poetry you 'get' on first reading and yet it calls you back again and again. First readings generally disclose a luxuriating moment; her use of ordinary language in service of joy and humanity marks her as a genius.

She may write a lot about nature but in a wholly different tone to Ted Hughes. And, latterly, her poetry has used meditation upon all things created as a doorway into time spent in contemplating and addressing the Creator.

I can't do better than quote here the following poem by way of example.

Maker of All Things, Even Healings

All night
under the pines
the fox
moves through the darkness
with a mouthful of teeth
and a reputation for death
which it deserves.
In the spicy
villages of the mice
he is famous,
his nose
in the grass
is like an earthquake,
his feet
on the path
is a message so absolute
that the mouse, hearing it,
makes himself
as small as he can
as he sits silent
or, trembling, goes on
hunting among the grasses
for the ripe seeds.
Maker of All Things,
including appetite,
including stealth,
including the fear that makes
all of us, sometime or other,
flee for the sake
of our small and precious lives,
let me abide in your shadow -
let me hold on
to the edge of your robe
as you determine
what you must let be lost
and what will be saved.

matt redman: we shall not be shaken

A new album from Matt Redman - spotified.

Leithart on Marilynne Robinson's Literary Calvinism

With Home amongst the Best Books list on this blog, here's an interesting addition: an essay by Peter Leithart on the Literary Calvinism of Marilynne Robinson.

Worth a gander.

grace in full bloom

We were sat today with a friend who knows she is dying. She has been terminally unwell for some time but her time is now clearly and visibly short. What was most clear, though, was the brilliance of God's grace, sustaining her and her family, giving glimpses of better things and sight of present blessings, too. It was more humbling than words can say.

On a similar theme is this interview with Steven Curtis Chapman, reflecting on the tragic death of his young daughter. It's solemn and solidifying reading.

His album, birthed from the grief, is on Spotify here.

a pop classic

I can't remember which radio station it was but, driving in the car the other day, an absolute classic pop song was playing - the kind of song that puts a smile on your face and a lightness in your step (if stepping is an appropriate thing to do when driving a car).

Anyway, here it is (spotify required). Enjoy.

"....talking Italian"

idolatry & ministry

Tim Keller has a new book (Counterfeit Gods) out soon on the subject of idolatry. His own personal reflections on idolatry in ministry are worth reading (go here).

virtual church

There's been a lot of debate in various places of late about the idea of 'virtual church' (people meeting for the purposes of 'church' in what is called synthetic space - i.e. virtually). The big question seems to be: Is virtual church 'church'? A couple of thoughts spring to mind:

i. One argument put forward to defend virtual church as real church is made along these lines: "I know someone who comes to my church every Sunday and is not physically present; I can’t touch him, can’t hold him, can’t hug him, can’t greet him with a holy kiss, but thank goodness, He’s there and in community with us." (from here)

I think we do need to admit the already/not yet dimensions of worship and of our personal knowledge of God. But it strikes me that there's a point being missed in that statement: he is physically present, inasmuch as his Spirit dwells within believers who meet together. You can - dare I say it - hug him. And that is part of the indispensible wonder of meeting together; we just don't realise it regularly enough, perhaps.

ii. It is, however, observably true that many people feel able to be more open and honest in relationships that are conducted in virtual space. Maybe that tells us we have more work to do in building secure face-to-face relationships that allow for a deep honesty. The attractiveness of virtual church to a large number of people is perhaps as much an indictment of 'real' church as it is of anything or anyone else.

the great books (xi) - jewel

Don't be put off by the cover of this book (it proudly announces it was chosen by the Oprah Book Club.....) - Bret Lott's tale of the life & times of Jewel Hilburn is a classic work of American fiction. The first chapter contains some of the finest writing I've ever had the pleasure to read and the rest of the book confirms its early promise.

It's about....well, I don't want to give too much away (I read it through without reading the blurb, not wanting to have any short-circuits) but life-history & the redemption of suffering wouldn't be a bad summary.

It's a truly great read.

High Flight: Dad's Movie Debut

Back in the 50s, Dad was stationed at RAF Cranwell. Whilst he was there, the base was used in a film called High Flight and starring Ray Milland and other notable actors (Leslie Phillips; John Le Mesurier; Anthony Newley to name a few). By a happy accident (I doubt he auditioned for the role), Dad had a walk-on part in which he helped an airman into his cockpit.

I last saw the film when I was very young (early 70s I think - we watched it on our black & white tv - we went colour in about '75). It's not the kind of film that gets shown these days and has been very hard to obtain. I thought we'd never track down a copy of it and a small piece of family history would be lost.

Well, I've managed to get hold of a copy and watched it today. It was in colour. Dad was superb, albeit onscreen for less than two seconds. He looked so young! And the whole film was really enjoyable.

A piece of history preserved.

God's Love is more than Kindness

If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.

C S Lewis, The Problem Of Pain, p.33

the present or eternity but not the future

In letter 15, Screwtape urges his nephew to focus his subject's thoughts on the future. He notes,

The humans live in time but our enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them...Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present...It is far better to make them live in the Future...We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

C S Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, pp.75ff

prayer & busyness

I know someone who's reading Paul Miller's A Praying Life - sounds like a great book. Here's a really helpful quote from it (as noted by Josh Harris & mediated via Justin Taylor):

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love . . . and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure.

the gift of food

Preparing to preach on Psalm 65, I came across this helpful observation by John Goldingay:

...food is the first thing God gives humanity (Gen. 1:29), the first thing God gives to humanity again after the flood (Gen. 9:3), a basic thing for which all look to God (Ps. 104:27,28), and the first thing for which Jesus bids his disciples pray (Lk. 11:3).

(Old Testament Theology, vol 2, p.562)

Dad's Big Break

When he was stationed at RAF Cranwell back in the 50s, Dad had a walk-on part in a movie that was made at the camp - High Flight, starring Ray Miland. We saw it when we were children and waited and waited for the big moment. It came and went in a matter of seconds. But it was Dad all right.

For years, the film has been unobtainable. And I guess it just isn't the sort of oldie that makes it onto TV these days. But at last I've located a copy and it's in the post. A memorably nostalgic moment awaits, for me and, now, for some of Dad's grandchildren too.

wolf hall

It won the Booker Prize for Hilary Mantel and has just made its way into my study, in readiness for some holiday reading in the next few weeks.

Not my usual cup of tea, historical drama, but I'm prepared to give it a go. Mind you, it's huge.

vanhoozer: on pastor-theologians

Kevin Vanhoozer on the type of preachers we need:

The preacher is a “man on a wire,” whose sermons must walk the tightrope between Scripture and the contemporary situation...The pastor-theologian, I submit, should be evangelicalism’s default public intellectual, with preaching the preferred public mode of theological interpretation of Scripture.

(HT: Michael Bird)

keller: how to become a preacher

From the pen of Tim Keller

It is only through doing people-work that you become the preacher you need to be - someone who knows sin, how the heart works, what people's struggles are, and so on. Pastoral care and leadership (along with private prayer) are to a great degree sermon preparation. More accurately, it is preparing the preacher, not just the sermon. Through pastoral care and leadership you grow from being a Bible commentator into a flesh and blood preacher.

kraftwerk: remastered

ok, you may not 'get' them; they're a relatively acquired taste - but for those who do get it, some good news: remastered kraftwerk albums now available on spotify.

for appetite whetting, here's a link to the man machine.

yummy.

the great books (x) - the bell jar

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's celebrated semi-autobiographical account of a descent into clinical depression and its treatment, of the failures of human relationships to secure stability and so much more besides. The struggles of Esther Greenwood (the main character) reflect deep disquiet with the social position of women, parental failures and much more. The lie that love and sex are the same thing is devastatingly exploded.

The writing has a cool objectivity that many have admired but is ultimately deeply disconcerting. The degree of detachment from the pain being described bears too much of the hallmarks of ongoing morbid fascination (or so it seems to me). There is not a shred of triumph here.

I've read this book probably three or four times. The first occasion was in early 1983 and co-incided with great depths of pain; I think for that reason I never made it all the way through the book. Returning to it some years later, and making it the whole way, left me thankful I'd put it down when I did. The sadness is unrelenting, all hope is qualified and life is demarkated as loss.

chris rea in concert

well, playing for radio 2 anyways (he's on tour soon & has a new greatest hits package to promote)

saw him in concert in early '85 at the birmingham odeon - best concert i ever went to.

so, taking advantage of the kindness of the radio 2 folks, here's the man singing his latest single...