how should life be seen & approached?

The biblical depiction of life begins with the words 'In the beginning God...' And it ends with a magnificent future that is also created by God. Just about everything in between also testifies to the eternal truth that life is made, redeemed, and certainly blessed by God. It's a gift to be received with humility and gratitude, not an achievement. Most of the biblical narrative for our lives can be seen as the unfolding drama of what happens when we do and do not accept our created identity as males and females made in the image of God, for communion with this Creator.

M. Craig Barnes, The Pastor as Minor Poet, Eerdmans, pp.8,9

fierce

I looked at you
with eyes that, I knew,
shone an intensity
that was fierce;

I shook your hand
with a grip that, I knew,
was not simply firm
but fierce, too;

And I looked,
and I gripped,
because I had no words
fierce enough

for your grief,
and our loss.

the great books (xv) - the screwtape letters

I think The Badger might approve of this one (and I do have to confess to being influenced by him in choosing to pursue more Lewis reading).

I hesitated to include it here because this is ostensibly a list of works of fiction. But what is a mild dilemma for me is, fully and truly, the genius of Lewis. His choice to write about the Christian life and, in particular, the struggle of a Christian to overcome temptation and to be, with Paul, wise to the schemes of Satan, by means of letters from a senior devil to his nephew makes his work rise to a greater height than any straightforward work of theology could have attained.

I've quoted on this blog from it before, here & there. Those excerpts - and they could be multiplied many times over - show an acuteness of insight that regularly leaves me speechless with admiration and sombre in reflection. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

And if The Caped Marauder (sorry, The Masked Badger) and I ever get around to posting a list of theological works, I daresay it will appear there too.

Deservedly.

'tis the season

for beta testing. Hot on the heels of taking part in the Laridian beta testing of the NET Bible & Notes, I've been accepted to beta test BibleMesh over the next few weeks.

BibleMesh? Have a look (at the bottom of the page you'll see the Sneak Preview option).

We'll see how it shapes up, I guess.

moments of the year 5

We were driving along, rushing to pick Iola up from school. Radio 2 was on in the car and it was the non-stop oldies at 3pm. Suddenly Anna says. 'Whos' that? He's got a nice voice.' It was The Smiths singing This Charming Man. She felt there was something authentic about him.

I think that has to be my most astonishing moment of the year.

moments of the year 4

For the most chilled moment of the year I'm nominating the few minutes we spent in the Will Neal exhibition at The Mill On The Fleet, back in August.

Will abstract paintings were perfectly complemented by some ambient music and the whole thing was just a few moments of deep relaxation.

Wonderful.

moments of the year 3

I don't suppose this counts as a 'moment', stictly speaking; more of an 'app' of the year, but I can't help but mention Spotify (again).

It's just a great, great way to access and listen to music. It's been a treat to be able to hear long-forgotten favourites, discover new ones and just generally have a ball. Music to suit any taste and every occasion.

All they need to do now is get the full Yoko Ono back catalogue on there & it's 'job done'.

If you're a photographer

but not yet David Bailey, these tips look good.

mutual subjection

Mutual subjection is God's way of nurturing harmony in a discordant world, unity in broken relationships, healing in a sick society and love in a divided church. it is applicable to imperfect people - like you and me - who belong to imperfect families, work imperfect jobs, participate in imperfect organisations, belong to imperfect churches and live in an imperfect world. It shows us how to function in communities that have tension and conflict running through them. It addresses people who are not married to the ideal spouse, who are not parents of ideal children, who are not members of ideal churches, and who do not have ideal jobs, colleagues and bosses. Mutual submission takes the world as it is, not as we want or expect it to be. It requires us to surrender ourselves to God, discerning how we can do his will in circumstances that are less than ideal.

Gerald Sittser, Love One Another, IVP, p.38 (my emphasis)

Advent Oratorio

Tom Wright and Paul Spicer some years back produced an Easter Oratorio. They have now followed it up with an Advent Oratorio (but note that Advent here primarily focusses on the commencement of Jesus' public ministry and his return in glory; 'Christmas' as such is not really in view).

You can read the full libretto here; by way of a taster, here is the opening chorus:

When the deaf hear the song of the new-born swan
and the lame go dancing on gold;
When the pauper raises his cheerful glass,
And the blind exclaim at the bright green grass,
And the hills bow down for the Lamb to pass,
Then the tale will at last be told.

It‟s a tale of a world put right at last,
it‟s the news of justice done;
It‟s the story the dead are eager to learn,
it‟s the song of the hedgerow, the stream and the fern,
it‟s the whisper of a long-lost Lord‟s return,
Of heaven and earth made one.

When the axe is laid to the root of the tree
(As the Baptist saw long ago);
When the greedy are blamed, and the violent tamed,
and the liars are named and the lustful ashamed,
and the rights of the poor are at last proclaimed,
Then the River of Life will flow.

And the Tree will grow its healing leaves,
and the Advent bell will ring;
And the stars will sparkle their glad applause,
and the seas will lend their voice to the cause,
while the angels unlock the ancient doors,
To welcome the coming King.

Beta testing

the NET Bible & its notes for Laridian's iPhone app. It means I need to use it a lot over this weekend, reading the text and looking-up the notes and so on.

Somehow it doesn't feel like a chore.

the aged & the manger

It was an 'outreach to the elderly' event. A lady played guitar and sang 'Away in a manger'. The people joined in. It was child-like, melancholic and deeply-knowing.

Here were people with formal Christian attachment, long years of, often, painful living behind them (some had lived through the War) and a present of evident decay. They sang of a baby sleeping in heavenly peace, of that child being near to them and loving them.

I can hardly remember a moment of deeper pathos and yet suffused with hope.

Too funny for words

Honest. It's a classic.

Especially the subtitles.

Go there.

the verse satan dared not quote

When assaulting Jesus with temptations, Satan quoted from Psalm 91

He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands
so that you will not strike your foot
against a stone. (v.12)

I wonder why he didn't go on to remind Jesus of the very next verse in that psalm?

You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent. (v.13)

moments of the year 2

For my sporting moment of the year, I'm opting for Stuart Broad's utterly destructive spell of bowling against Australia in the final test of this summer's Ashes series. It simply blew the Aussies away and laid the foundation for an England victory and the return of the urn.

As it happens, I heard some of that spell whilst driving to Leeds, to visit someone in hospital. TMS, as ever, was a joy.

this is astonishing

moments of the year 1

I've decided to offer here an eclectic mix of my very-subjective moments of the year, in a whole variety of disparate and random fields of human experience. Kicking-off today with

Current Affairs moment of the year - The special edition of Question Time on BBC1 to deal with the issue of the MPs expenses scandal. Back in the spring, that issue led almost every news programme for days. If MPs doubted the level of public anger over the revelations that just kept on coming (due, in part, to the smartness of the Daily Telegraph's coreography of the issue), then this programme ought to have swept that doubt into oblivion.

(The BBC has a Question Time microsite here which, alas, doesn't have that special edition for viewing but has many others on which the topic was raised)

pastoral abuse

John 9:13ff is a fascinating study in how not to pastor people and the inherent dangers in doing so. A few of the things that present themselves are:

i. The Pharisees are agrieved because the blind man's healing occurred on a Sabbath (v.13). As custodians of the law, that posed a threat to them and to their position. And their position meant more to them than the possibility that this was the in-breaking of God's powerful grace. Those who make much of their pastoral position will always be susceptible to such dangers.

ii. They govern through fear (v.22). It gets results, of course (of sorts) but always at the expense of others - in this case, undermining the relationship of the parents to their son.

iii. They demand compliance (v.24). Their shepherding is not by example nor by winsome exhortation; it simply demands a compliant response, based on their position. They do not lead through the power of sacrificial love (cf. John 10:12).

iv. They reject the opportunity for mature reflection (v.24). Wise pastors will always stop to reflect, to pray, to search God's Word and humble their hearts.

v. They are defensive, insulting and threatening (vv.28,34). They invoke censure and use exclusion for the wrong reasons: they are not seeking to restore the fallen but to victimise and punish any and all who oppose their distorted spirituality.

on the Word becoming flesh

A lengthy but very worthwile quotation from Herman Ridderbos on John 1:14

The Word...did not cease to be the Word that was from the beginning, and "became" does not mean "changed into." It denotes an identification...an identification that, though it is not further defined here or linked with the virgin birth, does mean that all the redemptive categories (the "life" and "the light of humanity") thus far attributed in the prologue to the Word now apply with the same absoluteness and exclusiveness to the man Jesus of Nazareth and, in his person as the possessor of that which belongs to God alone, completely transcend and exceed the possibilities of a mere man. One cannot (in 'docetic' fashion) hide or even dissolve the reality of the flesh, the true humanity of Jesus, in the revelation of the glory of God any more than one can (in 'kenotic' fashion) detach the glory of God from the humanity of the earthly Jesus. The Word did not become flesh by just assuming the form of the man Jesus as a garment in which God walked on earth or as an instrument that God used from time to time. Nor does "became flesh" only indicate the 'place' or 'sphere' where the revelation took place. At stake here is the Word's act of being united with the man Jesus such that in his self-revelation in words and deeds the glory of the Word of the beginning manifested itself, visibly and audibly, and is interpreted by him as such with a recurrent appeal to his Sonship and his having been sent by the Father. Thus "became" refers to a mode of existence in which the deity of Christ can no more be abstracted from his humanity than the reverse.

The Gospel Of John, Eerdmans, pp.49.50

29 years

ago, on 8th December 1980, John Lennon was shot dead outside his home in New York city. At the time and since, there have been many reactions to his death. From those closest to him, there were several musical responses: from Elton John, the song Empty Garden; from George Harrison, All Those Years Ago, on his 1981 album Somewhere In England; from Yoko Ono, John's wife, the harrowing album Season Of Glass. And from Paul McCartney, the song Here Today on his 1982 album, Tug Of War.

McCartney's offering could never plumb the depths of emotional trauma that Yoko's did - she was his wife, after all, and with him when he was killed. Yet Here Today has its own deep resonances and is, in its own way, a remarkable statement.

McCartney & Lennon famously fell-out as the Beatles imploded and were never visibly close friends thereafter. But having lived through so much together left its mark and in this song McCartney testifies to such, with obvious regret at their latter years of distanced relationship.

Its most telling line, though, is surely the unexpected acknowledgement from one Liverpudlian man to another, 'I love you'.

Well said, Paul.

It's on Spotify, complete with a Yesterday-style string quartet. And here are the lyrics.

And if I say I really knew you well,
What would would your answer be
If you were here today?
Here today.

Well, knowing you,
You'd probably laugh and say that
We were worlds apart,
If you were here today.
Here today.

But as for me,
I still remember how it was before.
And I am holding back the tears no more.
I love you.

What about the time we met,
Well I suppose that you could say that we were playing hard to get.
Didn't understand a thing.
But we could always sing.

What about the night we cried,
Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside.
Never understood a word.
But you were always there with a smile.

And if I say I really loved you
And was glad you came along.
If you were here today,
For you were in my song.
Here today