maggi dawn

fear and work

I don’t think you can do

good work

as an artist

if it doesn’t frighten you

andré previn

Indaba

I'm quoting Bishop Alan again today.   

He tells us that yesterday
was scientifically proven to
be the most depressing
day of the year

But he offers us a ray of hope at the launch of the Lambeth Conference with a description of Indaba - the meeting of the Elders:

" Indaba is Zulu/ Xhosa thing — the IzinDuna come together to do mutual business in a way which enables each to be heard, and wisdom to emerge from the group. It’s rather like a monastic chapter. It’s radically different from either Institutionalism, where people pretend to agree to save public face, Imperialism, where Billy the Bully rules OK, or Fascism, where you leave your brain at the door and the Führer tells you what to do because he’s always right.  Indaba is a noble ideal. It’s how the early Churches worked, often amidst bitter controversy, as every Patristics student is amazed to discover. Then, slowly, between the fourth and eleventh centuries, like formaldehyde, institutionalism and Roman imperialism seeped in. The reformation was a reaction to all that. Indaba is a gloriously messy concept. It annoys Anal Retentives, Bullies and Fascists, as well as lazy journos who can only understand punchups.

It’s counterintuitive, but indaba, if you stick with it, raises spirits and offers hope to the world."

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity...

... is 100 years old this week. We said prayers for unity in Chapel last night. We are an interdenominational Chapel, and while there's always plenty of room for improvement, there's much to celebrate in terms of a habit of minimising what divides us and focusing on what unites us. Dave Walker puts it well:

winter

It's that hibernation time of year again.  Christmas is over, and now it's just a couple of months of cold, wet, dark, until the signs of Spring will emerge.  My body may want to get up and go to bed with the sun, but a go-slow is not an option in term time. Term moves so fast and relentlessly that if you don't stay two steps ahead of everything you get flattened and never get back up again.  At least, that's how it feels.  On with the show...

picture from Aletheia

Keep your clothes on

I have several letters on my desk at the moment, asking me to write books.  I cannot write them all at once.  I may be able to write one at a time, if I'm highly organised.  I am the mother of a young boy, and I have a full time job.  One book at a time, and if I work hard and things go OK, I may get another one finished this year.

But which of these tempting projects should I take up?

Rev'd Lamblove writes this perceptive and witty post about what NOT to write.  Never, he advises, never read, and never write a "How to..." book.  Especially not one on how to do Church.  Go and read why...

Eat Real Food

Bishop Alan writes his review of a TV programme I'm glad I didn't watch.  The truth about junk food is everywhere.   I just don't get why people still eat it.   It tastes so bad, it makes you fat and ill, and it seriously shortens your life.  If you still need motivating to look after yourself, go read.

It's not even that time is a big issue.  If you're really in a hurry, it takes far less time and effort to steam-microwave or stir-fry a bag of freshly frozen mixed vegetables than it does to go to the burger shop.  The battle is won in the supermarket: buy the veg; just don't buy the crisps, burgers, and cheap horrid sausages.  I live on a budget.  I know this is true, even if you can't afford to be an avocado and prawn person.

wriggling worship

This is Wednesday's comedy moment - "Hello Pastor" from Ship of Fools.  You have to listen right through the clip to the dance mix at the end to get the funny bit.

Holy, Holy, Holy...

"We don’t have to make ourselves holy. We already are, and we just don’t know it."

Richard Rohr

HT: Prodigal Kiwi

The Kingdom of God

"The Kingdom of God" is one of those odd New Testament phrases that is hard to understand, loaded with difficult interpretative messages, practically impossible to define. Even Jesus, describing "the Kingdom" would give answers that, while brilliantly succinct, also immediately implied further questions to puzzle over. It was a topic Jesus returned to over and over again, which is one of the reasons it has always come back for more discussion in the Church. I remember writing not a few essays on it as an undergraduate, with each revisiting of the subject opening up a completely new avenue of thought.

Perhaps one of the best meditations on The Kingdom is that of R.S Thomas - Mark Laynesmith blogged it last Easter, with the perceptive comment that the disruption of sentence in every line gives you the here-but-not-yet-here quality of the Kingdom, which is "within you" and always "at hand" and yet still never quite attained.

Jon Birch at ASBO Jesus

perfectly sums up Christianity's subversive take on Kingdom and power.

Adam Walker Cleaveland has had the brainwave of getting a couple of dozen Stateside writers/bloggers to do a short blogpost each on the subject, which I'm following with interest, especially looking forward to Phyllis Tickle's and Brian McLaren's contributions: The Kingdom of God | pomomusings | progressive theology & design.

The "right kind of evangelical"...

Craig Uffman kicks off a debate here:“Open Evangelicalism”, the Wycliffe Hall Labor Dispute, and Our Theological Divide | Covenant., sparked by the Wycliffe Hall row, about current divisions in evangelicalism The debate that follows in the comments is worth reading through

soul searching

Notice from the MOOT community:

SOUL SEARCHING in SW1
Moot Community Arts in association with the SW1 Gallery, Victoria bring BEYOND THE WILDERNESS. Identify your hidden desires, your soul's yearnings and your long held hopes and dreams in the heart of the city.
Join us for BEYOND THE WILDERNESS - LENTEN JOURNEYS - end edgy collection of visual and performance arts taking you on a Lenten voyage of discovery.
AND IF YOU WANT TO BE THE ARTIST - it's your chance to unleash the poet within, the artist inside and explore your spiritual hunger with others on a similar path.
BEYOND THE WILDERNESS comes from Moot Community Arts and contains:

    * A two-week Lent spirituality course, Tues 12th Weds 20th Feb 08
    * An Art Show, 14th to 21st Feb 08
    * A performance Cabaret, thurs 21st Feb 08
    * A Poetry Workshop day, Sat 16th Feb 08

For more details and to book places, see Moot Community Arts Website http://www.moot-community-arts.net

The Orchard, Grantchester

christmas

break

with my boy

Chasing Francis

I spent a great couple of hours this morning talking to Ian Morgan Cron and one of his fellow-ministers. Ian's first novel, Chasing Francis, came out in 2006 (my review here). It was great to chew the fat today about church, liturgy, life, music and future writing projects. If you haven't read Chasing Francis yet, go get your copy now.

review

thanks Jody for a warm review of Beginnings and Endings.

(a list of other online and blog-reviews is here)

no-go areas

I've been meaning to comment on the flurry about "no-go areas" but time is squeezed. Happily Bishop Alan has said some sensible things, starting with the ninth commandment.

Of course there are a few crank Muslims. There are a few crank Christians, too. And crank atheists. My (Hungarian) mother told me all about Central Europe in the 1930’s, and the lies and stereotyping aimed at Jews. Hitler lied. Millions died. This stuff is dangerous, and it is easy in a stable and humane country like ours to underestimate the stakes when people start to play fast and loose with it.

Read the rest here: Bishop Alan’s Blog: Toxic Moonshine about Muslims.

Happy New Year

A few of my favourite bloggers have been writing about their resolutions, hopes and prayers for 2008. I blogged my resolutions in years gone by, and found it interesting to look back and see what I kept and what I completely left behind.

Sometimes the fact that we don't keep resolutions has precisely to do with a lack of resolve, or an unrealistic expectation of what we can achieve. I'm a great believer in the old adage that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time; really changing your life's patterns takes more than one resolution, it takes returning over and over to a chosen path and rededicating yourself to it.

But sometimes a failure to keep resolutions is more to do with the fact that we choose our hopes and ambitions without being able to see what the future will bring. Circumstances change in ways beyond our control, and make certain decisions possible and others impossible. My life in 2007 was touched by several deaths, one or two especially close to me, and my life has shifted in ways I couldn't have expected as a result.

In addition, some aspects of my son's life changed in the last few months, and as a result we are planning a year in which my work will be focused at home rather than abroad. It's easy to turn this to positive advantage, as I have a number of writing projects on the back burner that are overdue for completion. So (until the next unforeseen change) we'll be here in Cambridge while I beaver away at the keyboard, turning out books and articles. I might get itchy feet in the spring, but while the weather is so wintry I am quite looking forward to it.

Happy New Year, blog-readers. Whatever circumstances come your way, I hope you will be able to turn them to your advantage and live every moment in appreciation that life is a gift from God.

Beginnings and Endings - online reviews

Thank you to regular blog-readers and others who have read, reviewed, and been in touch about my recently published book. It was designed to be read through Advent and Christmas, to Epiphany. I'm delighted to discover that so many people found it helpfull; that's a great motivation as I crack on with the next piece of work.

Here are some of the online reviews of Beginnings and Endings:

Jody Stowell for Christian bookshops online

Big Bulky Anglican
Dave Paisley at Disaster Area
Bishop Alan   

Andy Goodliff    
Chris Erdman at Odyssey    
Simon Marsh
Jonny Baker
Richard at Distinctly Welcoming

The book is still available direct from the publisher, from Church House or Amazon, among other places.

Billy Elliot

I lovd Billy Elliot the movie, and a few days back I went to see the musical, slightly in trepidation that Billy Elliot without Marc Bolan and The Jam wouldn't be quite the same. I  need not have worried. It's aboslutely BRILLIANT. I paid a fortune for stalls seats, and I'd pay that several times over again just to see the scene where young Billy dances with his imaginary grown-up self. Here's a nice clip on making the movie and the musical, by its author: Lee Hall on the making of Billy Elliot | | Guardian Unlimited Arts.

the Effras

What better way to banish the post-New Year anti-climax than by listening to that splendid rock combo The Effras making their radio debut?

Effras frontman Andrew Rumsey will be interviewed on the Robert Elms show on BBC Radio London on Wednesday 2 January at 1:40pm (GMT) and the band will sing a live acoustic version of our signature tune, Down In The Effra, to the listening millions.

"But I don't live in London", you say? Technology to the rescue. Go to www.bbc.co.uk/london, click on "listen live" and lo, radio via the internet.
For more about The Effras, visit www.myspace.com/theeffras