maggi dawn

Ecclesiastical hedges

Planted in neat, straight lines,
designed to keep divinity in
or the world at bay?
Who can say?
They are thick and intricately tangled,
exquisitely manicured by God's officials
who have had long training
in the finer arts of hedging.
Snipping this way and that,
they mould the bushy green growth
into ever more ingenious designs:
flying fish, glamorous dragons,
motherly pelicans, tender lions,
meek lambs and impressive eagles.

So engrossed are they
in their tending of theological topiary,
they fail to notice God
popping out in her walking gear
and slipping out the back garden gate,
heading for the hills,
quietly whistling.

Nicola Slee   (HT +Alan)

sixty-second Bible

Fresh Expressions Bishop

I had an excited text message early yesterday morning with the news that this anouncement was about to be made. Sheffield was the city of my birth, although it looks a lot different now - all the city centre buildings used to be black ; now they are clean and modernised. I remember a s a small child being taken down The Moor to see the Christmas lights, which seemed as fantastic as a Disney fantasy.

I first met Steve Croft a while back when he was a Vicar and I was just about to be ordained. He's done sterling work in integrating alternative/emerging Church concerns into the Anglican and Methodist Church, and in the process has dismantled some of the bureaucratic baggage that makes organisations unwieldy over time.

I look forward to seeing what he can do to bring some more breaths of fresh air to the Church of England  in his new role.

Warning to former SPCK customers - your data may be at risk

Phil Groom writes about piles of "rubbish" left behind at closed SPCK bookstores:

A former member of staff, who does not wish to be identified, was passing the shop where s/he once worked as the new tenants were moving in. Seeing them clearing out the remains of SSG’s tenancy, s/he asked if s/he could take some of the debris off their hands. “Sure,” they said, and, amongst other things, they handed over a metal filing box that had been left behind.

At home, s/he opened the box and discovered:

… personal material about one staff member who had a disability and was employed with help from [...] - there are several of [...]’s confidential reports in there. Also included are job applications, staff addresses and phone numbers… there is even a month’s worth of till reconciliations, including the PDQ machine slips, which, if you know anything about the SPCK tills, means that I have a whole batch of credit card details with the full number and start finish dates…

This may be a one-off or it may be more widespread: we have no way of knowing. But if you have shopped in or worked for an SPCK/SSG Bookshop, be aware: your personal data is at risk; identity fraud and credit card scams are a very real possibility. Due diligence on data protection is not being exercised as the former shops are being abandoned.

Books for Advent

 I'm reminded by the upsurge of traffic on the blog, looking for Stir-Up Sunday and ideas for Advent, that Advent isn't far away - just over two months, in fact, as Advent 2008 begins on Sunday 30th November.  

This time last year I was all excited about the publication of my Advent book, Beginnings and Endings (and what happens in between) which is laid out in short chapters, one for each day from Advent to Epiphany.

The book was reviewed in these places: christianbookreview,  simon marsh,  the goodbookstall,  andy goodliff, bishop alan's blog,  amazon uk, jonny baker,  eden, pilgrim soldier,

I know a lot of blog-readers were frustrated with its limited availability last year. If you missed it then, I am informed that this year it really is IN STOCK at  Amazon UK.  Tesco online, W H Smith online, and there are copies via Amazon stateside too.

One of the ideas I wove through my book was that Advent and Christmas could do with simplifying, so that we had more time to enjoy the season and less of the mad rush that can make Christmas just seem like one more nightmare-ish deadline. So I'm happy to see that the wonderful Stephen Cottrell has extended his "Do Nothing" idea into Do Nothing, Christmas is Coming - an Advent calendar with a difference - something for every day of Advent to make Christmas preparations joyful rather than stressful. I'm waiting for my copy of  to arrive, but I'm confidently expecting something rather good.

(EDIT: Stephen Cottrell's book is, indeed excellent. I read the whole thing quickly at one sitting to get the feel of what it's about. A thoughtful read would take five minutes a day, perfect for taking the reader through Advent with a daily, short but by no means shallow "thought for the day". He recommends everything from how to get Christmas shopping into a manageable state, both for time and budget, to taking time for yourself, to handling thoughts of faith when you're not sure what to do with them. I'd say it would make a good Christmas present, but in fact, you need to send it to yourself and your friends around now really to be ready for early December! )

go and see the ocean...

I took my first solo road trip about a month after my divorce proceedings began. I drove from Virginia to North Carolina to visit friends. It was crisp and January. I’d been snowed in for five days before by a bad ice storm. I got on the highway. Then all of a sudden, there was Shenandoah, clean and resplendent. I pulled the car over on the empty shoulder of the road. For twenty solid minutes, I sat stunned by what I saw and for the first time, I knew in my bones that I never had to be where I’d been again. I never had to sit in an empty apartment waiting for a husband that would not come home. I didn’t have to attempt to mend anyone or attempt to believe unbelievable excuses. There was simply Shenandoah. And all that silence. And me...

read the rest here

You have to change to stay the same

I loved the recent "resurrection story" - that John Henry Newman's coffin was exhumed, only for the discovery to be made that not a shred of his remains remain. Actually, no big deal, given that human remains only last around seventy to eighty years, unless they're subject to some form of preservation.

Preservation is something Newman himself had things to say about - at least, when it came to the preservation of ideas in theology and ecclesiology. It's common idea, both among ecclesiological conservatives and Emerging/emergents that we need to "get back to the church of the New Testament". Despite the fact that this is a practical impossibilityk, there are better reasons for rejecting it, as stated by Newman himself, in his Essay on Development (1845), in which he writes of great belief or idea,

"Its beginnings are no measure of its capabilities, nor of its scope. At first no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It remains perhaps for a time quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it makes essays which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It seems in suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory; points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and around it; dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same."

It was Newman's words that I borrowed for my 1997 essay, You have to change to stay the same. (There's nothing new under the sun.)

The preservation, or the scientific analysis, of remains of former saints for the purposes of ecclesiastical politics seems to me a monumental waste of effort. But it does perhaps create an interesting metaphor to compare the preservation of human remains, so that they look like pickles, with the ossification of Church practices and structures. Maybe we should ensure that for the Church, too, there are no lead-lined coffins, and that everything is allowed to shift gear every 80 years or so.  

Brian McLaren on Chaplains

Brian writes:

I’ve been noticing more than ever how many chaplains are “ahead of the curve” in dealing with the “great emergence” we’re part of.

An encouraging word, as I set out on another term, juggling a Chapel programme around the needs and hopes and preferences of every kind of person, from conservative Christian to interested unchurched person.

Spiritual direction - what God is already doing

 I came across these two great quotes on Roberta's blog:

 

Burnout comes not primarily from doing too much,
but from doing what we don't really want to do -
so that one foot is moving forward
and the other foot is trying to run away."                 

Dennis Linn - Sleeping with Bread, p.13

The task of spiritual direction is not to make something happen, but to become aware of what God is already doing, so that we can respond to it, participate in it,

and take delight in it.                                                         

Lisa A. Myers

Jean Vanier in Cambridge

If you're in or near Cambridge, a date for your diary:

Wednesday 22nd October, 8.00pm

Making the World More Human

An evening with  

Jean Vanier

at Great St Mary’s the University Church, Cambridge

 

Jean Vanier is one of the great spiritual leaders and prophetic voices of our time.  In 1964 he set up l’Arche – or the Ark – in which the disabled and those who care for them live a shared community life.  There are now over 130 l’Arche communities through the world, which have given hope to countless people especially the most vulnerable. 

 

More details on the Cambrige Consultations website

Mark Driscoll and idolatry

Jason at Gower Street makes some good points about the inherent theological weakness in Mark Driscoll's version of a tatooed Jesus who can "make people bleed".

Boys' Bible

The new ESV Study Bible.

Pages: 2,752
Words: 2,000,000
Notes: 20,000
Cross-references: 80,000
Full colour maps: 200+
Illustrations: 40
Articles: 50 + 
Charts: 200+

Female contributors? - None. 

You do the maths.

Nick Page has the low down.

 

four-minute nativity

HT: David Keen