Digging a lot

Hymn

2012-05-24T20:31:51Z

I was thinking of choosing this today for an evening service. I am starting a monthly series on ‘doubts’. Not cognitive doubts- the kind of questions that I now find almost irrelevant: ‘Hmmm’ (strokes beard) ‘I have grave doubts about consubstantiation: can we explore it’. I am more thinking the kind of stuff around ‘How then shall we live?’; the things that leave us rudderless. Maybe that is a strange theme to begin on Pentecost; but why not? On this day, all is open.

I still find it upsetting and disturbing when people are apologetic about doubting or say words to the effect of ‘No one has ever given me premission to express that before’.

In that context I wanted to go for something old, poetic and traditional that may be a good deal dryer and more formal than I am, because a song like:-

’No more doubts for me, ‘cos I’m living in faith and victory,

For me God does his best,

And grants me mighty success’

doesn’t do it for me.

(you do realise I made that song up? You do….?)

So I hit upon this from John Newman. Archaic language, but perhaps more honest:-

‘Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!’

Well….

2012-05-16T21:48:23Z

…found on Facebook.

I wish.

Friday Music

2012-05-25T06:28:45Z

One of my sons ‘feels’ music: it is not just a noise or a pleasant tune but something that moves him. Alongside the normal stuff that 8 year olds listen to (and which usually fetches the enamel off my teeth) he borrows my cds. This one is from one which he borrowed last week:-

The guy was in concert close by a couple of weeks ago. Sadly I couldn’t make it: I’d seen him before 12 years ago performing under another name and been impressed and moved-there is a raw honesty about his performing.

One Saturday we worked out part of the melody to this, the first song on his first album (Songs from the Deep Forest) and this performance makes me regret even more that I did not see him.

Athiesm is banal.

2012-05-24T06:07:00Z

Confession: I just put that title to attract people to read this blog- I am that shallow. I do not believe that athiesm is banal; I have met many thoughtful and sincere people who subscribe to no faith (indeed, sometimes I find their company much more attractive than people of faith!).

In the midst of an excellent, rich and complex interview in this month’s ‘Third Way’ with the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann there was an excellent quote. I have never read Moltmann- perhaps I should. His background is interesting- he came from a family of no faith in Germany and was a p.o.w. in Britain before coming to faith through the self giving love of Scottish Christians. He has tremendous respect for thinking athiests- he is no angry denigrator of others- but he makes this point contrasting the athiesm he experienced in Germany postwar when people were reacting to something to much of today’s athiesm as he experiences it:-

‘Today, we have people who have just forgotten about the church and have discovered that they can live a happy life without God and religion. It’s more an athiesm of banality. And so the church should not only bring consolation to this society but stir it up, because…’without God everything would be ok, but with God nothing is’- because God gives us a conscience about what we do and what we let happen.’

I loved that phrase ‘athiesm of banality’- if people chose that path I wish they would be passionate and not insipid about it (mind you I wish Christians would as well).

Here is something I wrote earlier…

2012-05-18T15:12:54Z

I confess: I do not like doing newsletter articles for churches or for anyone really. I have read too many ministerial articles that begin with a phrase like ‘Sitting in my study I see a squirrel climbing a tree:you know, that reminds me of God’. Actually I have written too many articles like that.

I don’t post sermons on here. I think they are unique for that time and place; plus my notes are a mess. I did, however write this for next month’s village newsletter. What on earth do you write for that; do you largely ignore the mass of readers and just address your constituency and use insider language? Or do you preach at people? Both those approaches I believe only make the writer feel good. It is harder to address the mass who may ignore you or think you are irrelevant.

I have a go though; even if sometimes I feel that what I write may be a little ‘drippy’. So I give you a village newsletter article written for 2000 people who may not even read it:-

‘We are in the middle of a time of national celebration: the Diamond Jubilee and then the Olympics. If you are not giddy already with national celebration then you soon will be.

One of the many things I am looking forward to in the build-up to the Olympics is the rerelease next month of ‘Chariots of Fire’. I remember first watching it and I have watched it many times since. My youngest son frequently watches the final scene if he is looking for inspiration.

The line from the film that I remember the most is the bit where Eric Liddell speaks to his sister about why he won’t stop competitive running to become a missionary. He says ‘I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure’. That has always inspired me; life does not split into ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’-whatever I do can be for the glory of God.

The many athletes in the Olympics and Paralympics will show us the ability to use what they have been given to enthral and entertain us; they may even inspire us, if not to do likewise to at least get fitter!

All of us have something that we have a skill or talent for; I believe that when we use it not only our lives are lit up but others’ are as well. When we do; who knows- maybe we will feel God’s pleasure as well’.

Inspiration

2012-05-21T22:50:24Z

I was researching an article (see tomorrow) and came up with this which I ended up not using:-

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” (Howard Thurman)

I had a review this week. I was pondering options for my future (in about a year the church talk to us about where we do from August 2014)- which may not neccesarily be full time ministry: there may be some of that, there may be a lot of that but I may look at other avenues. Everything is deliciously and scarily open.

When I was talking through this coming year of questions and investigation, someone on my review group almost seemed to use the quote above. There were things I could do, that make me feel alive, but no money to do them, no accomodation and an overdraft to feed. That person suggested that really those things were secondary; the first thing was to sort out your passions and your calling.

I would have rejected that as motivational hokum. I now think he has a point.

Sometimes speed doesn’t make things any faster….

2012-05-20T21:44:34Z

There seems to be a lot of speed around at the moment. Some churches locally are reviewing their life. This is good. A corollary is that there are many meetings. This is bad.

Well, it is not strictly bad as such; there is great value in conferring together and using that most neglected of Christian organs: the brain. However sometimes for me, talking becomes more talking becomes more talking (a great methodist trait) and eventually I am almost drowned by the words. Sometimes I wonder if our volubility is a way of trying to cover the silence of God: He won’t act, he won’t speak therefore we have to say more.

I came across this from a sermon I preached almost 12 years ago. It is from a superb book by Donald Eadie called ‘A Grain in Winter’ that may well be out of print. When I first read it, it began to breathe stillness and questions into the wordy and answer based theology culture that I was part of.

‘The person who waits to hear from God may in the long run walk more swiftly’ (p9)

and this:-

‘To wait open endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life .So it is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings . So , too , is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life , trusting that God moulds us according to God’s love and not according to our fear’ (p10)

I have been struck too that in our prayers we often pray that God will help us lead busy lives and ‘get things done’. I wonder if God sometimes sits down by the road, stops, and waits for us to join Him. Our need is not for more speed but for a greater attentiveness.

A hymn for today

2012-05-18T15:22:00Z

It’s Sunday; we sing hymns. I picked this really old one a few weeks back. As I get older I find that I can sing fewer and fewer hymns and songs. Despite the archaic language, I like this one.

It just struck me, singing it, that it exposes the root DNA of Methodism. We don’t work from a ’Field of Dreams’ paradigm (1990s Costner film): ‘Build a field and they will come’ as in ‘Build a church and they will come’. Underneath, we work from a ‘Go/seek’ paradigm. Although much is declining/altering, it is that root DNA, praise God (and for me to use an ecstatic phrase like that is rare!) that is begiining to assert itself again…

‘Come, let us sing of a wonderful love,
Tender and true, tender and true,
Out of the heart of the Father above,
Streaming to me and to you:
Wonderful love, wonderful love,
Dwells in the heart of the Father above.

Jesus the Saviour this gospel to tell
Joyfully came, joyfully came,
Came with the helpless and hopeless to dwell,
Sharing their sorrow and shame:
Seeking the lost, seeking the lost,
Saving, redeeming at measureless cost.

Jesus is seeking the wanderers yet;
Why do they roam? why do they roam?
Love only waits to forgive and forget;
Home, weary wanderers, home!
Wonderful love, wonderful love,
Dwells in the heart of the Father above.

Come to my heart, O thou wonderful Love!
Come and abide, come and abide,
Lifting my life till it rises above
Envy and falsehood and pride:
Seeking to be, seeking to be,
Lowly and humble, a learner of thee’.

(Robert Walmsley)

Well I was learning about social meejah…

2012-05-16T21:45:06Z

After this week’s course, I realise that social media has it’s downsides….

Friday Music

2012-05-17T22:32:43Z

It was http://banksyboy.blogspot.co.uk/ who did it. Over a month ago, he featured this:-

I heard the track he posted it and liked it. And then I did some digging:- an artist around the CCM scene who fell out with that scene and went back to being a musician who happened to be a Christian (I would say ‘went forward’). He wrote a clutch of songs and wanted to get people to record them: some of them would have faith and others none; just people he respected as musicians.

He could not get backing for the project so had to seek outside support. This was his rationale:-

“One of the things that I wrote in my little plea for patrons was, ‘If you’re tired of fundamentalists, whether they’re Christian, Muslim or atheist, maybe you relate to the idea of who the rest of us are,’ ” he says. “I actually had a fundamentalist guy write me and say, ‘You know, I really want to give you my hundred bucks, but I’m really upset that you’ve left out the fundamentalists.’ I mean, it was a trick question. And I thought, ‘You’re the people excluding everybody, not me.’ “

And I liked reading this:-

‘The project gestures toward the rich complexity of spiritual expression, and acts as a reminder that it’s unwise to assume what a singer means, or doesn’t mean, when she sings of matters of the spirit.

“I didn’t care whether the people on the project believed what I believed or not,” says Madeira. “I mean, there is a theme. There is an inescapable acquiescence to the idea of God is love. So there’s a side of it that might as well be gospel, but it’s still a different gospel.”

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/the-phil-madeira-curated-mercyland-hymns-for-the-rest-of-us-explores-a-pluralistic-take-on-gospel/Content?oid=2838003

…and the music? Well, being around Nashville there is a fair quota of pedal steel guitars and hammond organs and americana, but it is very very good.

If you look at Banksy boy for 15/4/12 you will see a very good video for a Shawn Mullins track. The one below has no video, just the song; this one stops me in my tracks each time I hear it.

Digging a lot

Hymn

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