Dastardliness

 

The word sin means nothing to most people. If you are a born again Christian it may be part of your everyday worldview but for the rest of society it is a word to be associated in a "nudge nudge" sort of way with sex or with cream cakes - naughty but nice... As a word describing the tendancy to doing things that are not good or pure evil it has lost its power. Indeed in teenage slang the phrase "Sinful" and "wicked" may be used to describe an experience that is really good!

The  tendency towards wickedness is still very evident in  our world. Only this week we will all have been struck by the immoral actions of the very highly paid traders at Barclays Bank who manipulated the interest rates of others for their own benefit. 

Against this background I read a chapter in Ann Morisy's book "Borrowing from the future". She has a novel and to me meaningful way of describing sin and sinfulness... I quote (page 7)...

"Jesus claims to provide an adequate respose to human dastardliness - that sneaky wickedness that is corporate and individual, conscious and unconscious, seen and unseen.

There is something alluring about the word dastardly. I use the word dastardly instead of the much simpler word sin. I do this because the word sin has little resonance in a secular society, but the failure to recognise sin does not mean that it has no impact. As we puzzle how to pivot, to turn ourselves around and turn the issue of intergenerational fairness* around we are confronted by sin - dastardliness, our own, other peoples and the dastardliness that runs adeep and furtively through our world. Jesus provides a path through this dastardliness. For those who are Christians this way through is secured through Jesus' death and resurrection, but Christians and non Christains alike will be interested in how, by showing us how to live, Jesus also provides a path through dastardliness."

* or turn around any other issue of moral concern..

quote from Ann Morisy "Borrowing from the future: a faith based approach to intergenerational equity"  Continuum  2011  ISBN978-1441-12536-1

Cartoon is of Dick Dastardly - a villain in th cartoon series "Wacky Races"!

Scottish democracy

Last weekend I heard Gerry Hassan speaking about his new book "'The Strange Death of Labour Scotland' 

I found his analysis of the political situation intreaguing. He said that up until devolution there had never been democracy in Scotland. Up until then Scotland had been goverened by fuedal patronage - in the ninteenth century by the Liberals, in the first half of the twentieth century by the Conservatives and in the second half of the twentieth century by Labour. His analysis of Labour was interesting. They had always been a small party and had goverened with an illusion of strength through a power base in the trade unions, and council housing. These have both declined - and with them has the labour parties power of patronage. We are now in the untested waters of PR making many different alliances possible and at the same time the institutions and powers are seeking to cosy up to the SNP to see if they are playing the patronage game. 
It is a convincing arguement based on what I remember from the presentation but I will have to study the book in more detail.

Love

" Love doesn't exist, in that you can't objectify it and grasp it. But what it does, it calls everything into existence. Whenever you see someone you love, they are called out from the background. You see thousands of people every day, but when you see someone you love, they are called forth from that pulsating void.

Love is not sublime and beautiful. Love is that which says the person in front of you is sublime and beautiful, or the world is sublime and beautiful. And love is not meaningful, love is what brings meaning into the world. So that when you love you cannot help but experience the world as meaningful, even if you believe it is not. Whereas if you don't love, you can't help but think the world is meaningless, even if you believe it is meaningful.

The contrast with the idol is: love does not exist until you let it go. Then you experience it as a pre-eminently existing thing. And this is a metaphor for God of course - God does not exist when we try to go at God as existing; God is not sublime when we try to say God is sublime; God is not meaningful when we try to make God a meaningful thing. But the paradox is, as soon as we let go of all these things and embrace life, we find that God is the pre-eminently existing, sublime and meaningful being in the universe."

Peter Rollins in conversation with Kay Parris in "Reform" June 2012.

Solstice

The summer solstice is today! 

 “There is almost no summer night in the north; only a lingering evening, darkening slightly as it lingers, but even this darkening has its ineffable clarity. It is the approaching presentiment of the summer morning. When the music of late evening has sunk to a violet, dusky pianissimo, so delicate that it lengthens into a brief rest, then the first violin awakens with a soft, high cadence in which the cello soon joins, and this inwardly perceived tone picture is supported outwardly by a thousand-tongued accompaniment twittering from a myriad of branches and from the heights of the air. It is already morning, yet a moment ago it was still evening...” 

- Frans Emil Sillanpää, ‘People in the summer night’ (translated by Alan Blair)

Muscular Christianity

In the Victorian era manly Christian endeavour and moral value were combined in a movement called muscular Christianity. This movement carried with it notions of spiritual, moral and physical purity. As we approach the Olympics and are already surrounded by wall to wall European football and will soon have Wimbledon on top, sport and religion seem an interesting topic for musing.

Muscular Christianity had its roots in a number of ethical concerns prevalent in the nineteenth century: the protection of the weak, the plight of the poor and the promotion of moral virtue. These ideas of spiritual and moral purity through physical endeavour resulted in the establishment of a series of values that underpin the relationship between sport and religion even today. (Fair play, respect for oneself and others, strength both physical and emotional, perseverance,  deference, subordination, obedience, discipline, loyalty, cooperation, self control, self sacrifice, endurance, courage, temperance and esprit de corps (teamwork : a shared spirit of dedication to a cause.) These values underpin the Olympic games themselves. 

This movement started in the English public schools and this was where the rules for all modern sports and games were devised. (Tom Brown's Schooldays was published in 1857.)

The social backdrop to this movement was industrialisation and a change in social life. In fast growing new towns and cities there were concerns about public health and welfare amongst the poor. Churches and other groups developed sports clubs to redirect the energies of the working classes away from drinking gambling and disorder to more socially acceptable and healthy behaviour. In this way many of the modern football clubs were formed.

These thoughts were prompted after reading an article in the magazine of the bible society.

Watching a death

Gabby is dead. 

She had been with us since January 1997.

Last Monday evening she had a seizure or slight stroke. She lay on her side and her feet were in the air trembling. I picked her up gently and put her on her bed. She rested then later got up and had a drink and then ate her tea. Though she had made a complete recovery, we knew that she was probably on borrowed time.

Then yesterday she had another stroke. It was more serious this time. She ended up paralysed on one side and she could not use her right front leg. We put her in her bed and tried to make her rest. She was restless. She has been deaf and had very poor sight for many months now. But still she would come out every day and have her exercise at her own slow pace, sniffing through the undergrowth along the familiar woodland paths.Yesterday morning, before it happened she spent half an hour happily exploring our familiar garden.

Last evening she seemed to be recovering. Though limping badly she made the effort to get out of her bed and hobble about a bit. She ate and drunk.

But she did not have a good night. She was restless all night; yelping and barking in frustration in whatever world she was now inhabiting. This morning we found that, unlike last night, she could not now stand. Last night she had been able to stand and hobble. Now she wriggled a bit on the bed and then cried out in frustration. The end was now clearly in sight. 

I phoned the vet and he came and the injections were quickly administered.  The strong sedative sent her into a deep sleep then after ten minutes the second injection stopped her heart. 

We dug a hole in the orchard and have buried her under the grass that so recently she was snuffling around. 

She lies under the plum tree still wearing the faded red tartan collar she has worn for years.

Rest in Peace Gabby dog, aged 16 years, pedigree West Highland White Terrier and feisty friend. We will miss you.

Dr Samuel Johnson

In "Journey to the western isles of Scotland" Dr Johnson wrote -

"...it must be remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions, or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruption."

Ecumenism

I have been thinking about ecumenicism as I have been designated a trustee of Acts (Action of Churches Together in Scotland). Legally I am again a company director and have an oversight responsibility.

But what is this ecumenical body for?  My answer is that it is a facilitating body belonging to all the churches and belonging to none of them which sits in the liminal space between the denominations to facilitate co-operation and sharing. It is not an organisation with an agenda. It aims to be invisible. The agenda has to be set by the member churches. Together they decide what they want to use this facilitating organisation or instrument to facilitate. 

Churches have very different priorities and each are pursuing these agendas on their own. As a result many do not have much energy left over for pursuing joint projects. There are other agencies that have specialised agendas that churches and individual Christians can sign up to support to pursue specific ends (for example in the area of world development Christian aid, Tear fund or SCIAF offer parallel opportunities for contributing to alleviation of poverty in developing countries in line with the flavour of you Christianity) 

Each denomination is facing problems as they manage decline. In a changing world there often seems to be a corral mentality as people huddle together to protect what they still have and hold dear.

I do not detect any appetite for organic union - there is a realistic recognition that traditions are held so passionately that they define denominations. The ecumenical adventure that occupied so much of church members time in the second half of the twentieth century has stalled because we now know where the lines in the sand are located. We also know where we can co-operate and agree without difficulty. I suppose it is just up to us to go on being church in our own way, following parallel paths and recognising that despite the differences we share in the great fudge of mystical union. 

(Image courtesy ofDanilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net )

The Church's one foundation
is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is his new creation,
by water and the word:
from heaven he came and sought her
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died.

Elect from every nation,
yet one o'er all the earth,
her charter of salvation,
one Lord, one faith, one birth;
one holy Name she blesses,
partakes one holy food,
and to one hope she presses,
with every grace endued.

Though with a scornful wonder
men see her sore oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed;
yet saints their watch are keeping,
their cry goes up, "How long?"
and soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.

Mid toil and tribulation,
and tumult of her war
she waits the consummation
of peace for evermore;
till with the vision glorious
her longing eyes are blessed,
and the great Church victorious
shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
with God, the Three in one,
and mystic sweet communion
with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
like them, the meek and lowly,
on high may dwell with thee.

Discernment

Discernment is difficult to define because very few people practice it or even properly understand what it involves. Christians use it as a way of describing the process by which we understand what God wants for us and for our community/world. Unfortunately many people see discernment as the process of finding evidence to support your own idea of what God wants you to do! Discernment is also used by people of other faiths or none and it involves the same process.

I recently came across a description of how discernment is meant to work. It is based on three elements: faith, freedom and facts.

Discernment starts with faith. If it is being used by people of faith then it needs to use all the resources of the faith - the written texts and the sum of human knowledge and experience of the faith over the centuries. There are many resources as all human problems have been considered and written about by people of faith. The original biblical texts often require considerable interpretation to be applied to current situations. It is of course very easy to find texts that support your a-priori position but then that is not discernment! If you have no religious faith then your worldview and ethics condition how you understand reality. This works in exactly the same way as faith.

Discernment will only be properly discernment if it is done in freedom - if people are free from prejudices and have not already adopted an idea for which they are seeking validation. It is very difficult to be truly open minded. But unless we can achieve this state of mind how can God speak to us? We can only do it by consciously and transparently confessing our own ideas and beliefs. Atheists are sometimes the most prejudiced because they have already ruled out many alternatives and ways of understanding that others have accepted.

And the third thing that we need for discernment are facts. There are some unequivocally and universally agreed things called facts. We need to make ourselves aware as best we can of what the reality that we are facing involves and use this as the foundation for discerning the way.

There will not be one way ahead. There will always be many possibilities but humans have an inbuilt inertia and conservatism that wants to travel down known paths rather than facing the new. If we are truly discerning we may only see a short way ahead and be quite scared because we do not have a clear picture of where we are going. But I believe that discernment has always been about feeling our way ahead one step at a time, rather than seeing a clear highway stretching out before us. As John Henry Newman wrote:

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!

Meantime, along the narrow rugged path, Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith, home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life.

Making a stand

"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right."

Martin Luther.

Wisdom

Plato said:

" A wise man speaks because he has something to say, a fool because he has to say something!"