maggi dawn

marrying your grandmother...

Bishop Alan  is on absolutely top witty form this morning on iPods, grandmothers and mattins. Does he have his tongue in his cheek when he claims that Bishops never get bored in Church?...

polygamy, male domination, and Dave's by-word on the Anglican crisis...

Disaster Area: Where Polygamy's Just Another Word For Never Having To Do The Dishes.

can you find real community on the internet?

Tale Spin: Tim’s late night questions about the Internet..

The Christian Century

I've written a couple of articles for The Christian Century. They will appear in the print version of the 2nd October issue, I got my copy through the mail yesterday. The articles are under the title "Living by the Word", and give some thoughts on the upcoming lectionary readings (RCL). The first page is on the Ten Lepers (Luke 17), and the second on the story variously known as The Unjust Judge and The Importunate Widow. I've connected both of the readings to issues of justice, not because that was the brief, but because that is just the thread that jumped out at me from both readings this time round. By happy coincidence, that theme fits well with the other articles in the issue.

The Christian Century is a good publication, well known in the USA but less so on this side of the pond. If you haven't come across it before, check it out.

Just say no...

Words of wisdom for the over-busy from Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Leaving Church

Learning to say no is how we clear space for a few carefully planted yeses to grow. Saying no to lesser gods is part of saying yes to God...

Link: The Christian Century.

Jonny Baker: The Labyrinth - A Transforming Ritual

I had a promo email today from YTC publishers, and I see that Jonny's new book about Labyrinths is out. I'll be interested to see this one, partly because Jonny is a friend whose work and innovative ideas I've always admired, but particularly because I worked with Jonny's team on getting the Cathedral Labyrinth to King's College Cambridge in 2002. The big-scale Labyrinth suited the space beautifully, and we only had to adapt it slightly to suit the College Chapel format. My guess is that other large public spaces would also "work"... but enough from me, check out Jonny's thoughts here: The Labyrinth: A Transforming Ritual - YTCPress.com.

It's today, it's today, it's today!!!...

A kids' movie called Stuart Little came out a few years back, and my son, then very small, absolutely loved it. It starts when a seven year old boy called George wakes up, rubs his eyes, puts on his Harry Potter glasses, and then leaps out of bed exclaiming "It's today, it's today, it's today!!!!" 

Well I''m not seven, and I NEVER actually leap out of bed, not even at Christmas. But now my first cup of tea has woken me up, I do admit to feeling ...  just ever so... 

slightly excited today...

God the hairdresser

Amid mountains of essays to mark, Emergent Steve Taylor posts a good thought for the day: e~mergent kiwi: God the hairdresser. Thanks, Steve!

on prayer

"Prayer should be brief and pure, unless it happen to be lengthened by an impulse or inspiration of divine grace."
from the Rule of St Benedict

show up at the page; put words on it

I have long been a fan of Rachelle... there are quite a few parallels in our lives, and she inspires me.  She's one of four artist friends who have, between them, inspired and persuaded me to start painting and singing after a few years in the doldrums. And although I was writing already, to gather confidence and discipline and method in writing too. A lot of the dynamic in creative pursuits is similar from one form to another - the way you work, the blocks to work, the balance between discipline and inspiration (which, regrettably, is heavily biased towards discipline. Only when you' regularly put in the hours on stuff that gets thrown in the bin does that sweet inspiration strike and something that seems effortless flows onto the page or the canvas.  Madeleine L'Engle said that the drafts of whole books that are thrown into the bin are like the pianist's five-finger exercises. Without them, the good novels are never written.)

This morning Rachelle encapsulates the tendency among artists and writers to put off that awful blank-page moment, filling the time with endless mundane tasks - all of which, of course, are entirely important to life...

...Every morning the writer wakes up, eager to put pen to paper, and every morning resistance kicks in to keep the writer from actually doing the one and only thing she really wants to do. It is inevitable. It is part of the game and one cannot play in the writing world without this dark nemesis. What’s a girl to do?

Cram the bastard back down into the dung heap it came from, that’s what.

“Yes, “you cry, your voices in unison against our common foe, “Yes, but how?” Ah, there’s the rub. I think it goes something like this:

Show up at the page.

Put words on it.

go read the whole thing here: Magpie Girl - Writing and Resistance.

Me? I'm off to the page now to put words on it...

In search of the Goodly Spirit of Goole

John Davies' latest entry on Walking the M62 is really lovely - good writing, good imagination, and a great reflection on finding the holy in the most ordinary of everyday things

Countdown to Sunday [or, (don't) preach it, brother...]

I blogged a while back about a new book by Chris Erdman, which is about preaching... no, wait. I can't say that on this blog. Because preaching is well out of fashion, right? Even the word presses all the wrong buttons. Not just bad preaching either - in our alternative-, pomo-, emerging-church world, even good preaching gets a heavy critique for being too good - too slick, too well prepared, so scholarly and well presented and complete and convincing that the preacher is once removed from everyone else, and you feel you can't argue back, can't contribute to the interpretation, can't somehow penetrate into ownership of the sermon.

The credibiity of the sermon is further damaged by a steady trickle of headlines about preachers who are found not to be practising what they preach, and the advisability of becoming a preacher is questionable given how many people buckle under the pressure of an idea of ministry that is beyond the scope of the ordinary human beings.

But that's not really what Chris is into either, when he writes about preaching. His title - "for those who dare to preach" - already flags up that he knows exactly the dangers of the preaching culture - it's toxic for the minister and disenabling for the listener. His book isn't at all how to preach better, work harder - it's about how to redeem the idea of talking about God within the community in a way that liberates the preacher as well as the listener. It's an antidote to slick preaching, bad preaching and inauthentic preaching, but still says - do we dare to preach? What would preaching look like if we didn't buy into the toxic stuff?

The real question I'm left with is, do we have anything to say? Just for a minute, let's not call it preaching. Let's describe what it really is - it's talking and telling the gospel in an engaging and inviting way that draws people in; offers them treasures without insisting on how they wear them; gives them ingredients and invites them round to help you cook.

Chris's book is really liberating, reimagining what the true task of gospel-telling is. It's not the dreadful treadmill of homiletics, and neither is it an exercise in covering up the vulnerabilities of the preacher. Chris re-focuses both the objective and the way of preparing so that you live the gospel, and let it live in you. In this way you become an authentic gospel-teller, not a slick salesperson; someone concerned with inviting not impressing.

It's good. Go read.

Vicar's cafe

check this out. Seriously imaginative "church" for people who don't want to go to "church"

hat tip: BBA

au revoir, Madeleine L'Engle

I have wept a few tears today for someone I never met. Ever since I was a child, I have returned to Madeleine L'Engle's books over and over again.

A Wrinkle in Time was my first. I read Circle of Quiet for the third time this summer in France.

I learned from Ms L'Engle how to hold faith together with imagination, obedience and respect together with a healthy degree of rebellion, and that life is to  be lived right now, not as a down-payment for the hereafter.

“Why does anybody tell a story?” Ms. L’Engle once asked, even though she knew the answer.
“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Rest in Peace, Madeleine. Thank you, thank you for all you have given to your readers. Obits in the NY Times. and Episocopal Life

Women and church: Canon Lucy Winkett

Canon Lucy Winkett was on top form at Greenbelt, speaking about four ways (martyr, virgin, mystic, wife) in which women have shaped the Christian tradition despite only being allowed to do so within severe constraiants. I'm delighted to find that her current talks at St Pauls are expanding on these themes, and the first are now on St Paul's Cathedral website:  Your faith has made you well,  talks by Lucy Winkett.

Walking the M62

One of the highlights of my Greenbelt was meeting up with John Davies, one of the most interesting and talented priests in this country. (That's my humble opinion, of course, but I happen to know I'm right about this.) John is spending his sabbatical leave not on a flash conference, a faraway beach, a calm library, or in a beautiful monastery, but walking the length of the M62, from Hull to Liverpool, learning to see and hear in everyday life in places not usually on the tourist route. Later he is going to write up his thoughts; I for one am waiting with interest to see what he writes. In the meantime, follow the blog for inspiration about.

greenbelt 07

happy memories... serena took this pic

of Dave Perry (In Camera), Ray Khan and me. I was backing vox, standing in for Leah, In Camera's regular singer. That was a fun, fun gig.