maggi dawn

Beach Labyrinth

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DFS, Direct Funeral Services - are they dodgy?

Dave Faulkner reports that a funeral director, whose services are available nationwide via a website, is a dodgy dealer and should be avoided.  BBC Watchdog did a piece on them last year. Here's what Dave says:

"...received an email overnight from a trusted friend, alerting me and other ministers to the fact that a funeral director with a very questionable history appears to be operating again. He has evidence of his activity in Woking in May.

The man’s name is Richard Sage. His companies are either called DFS, Direct Funeral Services or St Christopher’s – the last one being a business run from his villa on the Costa del Sol, offering funerals to expatriate British citizens.

If you come across him, beware. There is a seven-minute report on him from the BBC TV show Watchdog last November..."

Oh to be in Paris...

Todd Bentley restoration: too much too soon

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Michael Jackson

The last couple of nights I've stayed up way too late watching James May and others talking about the 1969 moon landings. Like all kids of that era I remember the tension and mystique, waiting to hear if they made it into orbit, waiting to hear if they landed, waiting to hear if they made it round the dark side of the moon and were heading home or - horror of horrors - might disappear forever into eternity.

1969 was a great year. J5 suddenly were everywhere with I want you back, and Michael Jackson was absolute dynamite, and all that apparently effortless talent grew into a startling career in his early adulthood. Who can even begin to wonder about the source of all the strangeness that followed. But I hope people will remember the talent and not let the wierd stuff eclipse it.

Gilead

In the matter of belief, I have always found that defenses have the same irrelevance about them as the criticisms they are meant to answer. I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always and inadequacy in argument about ultimate things. We participate in Being without remainder. No breath, no thought, no wart or whisker, is not as sunk in Being as it could be. And yet no one can say what Being is. If you describe what a thought and a whisker have in common, and a typhoon and a rise in the stock market, excluding existence, which merely restates the fact that they have a place on our list of known and nameable things (and which would yield as insight: being equals existence!), you would have accomplished a wonderful thing, still too partial in an infinite degree to hve any meaning, however.

I've lost my point. It was to the effect that you can assert the existence of something - Being - having not the slightest notion of what it is. Then God is at a greater remove altogether - if God is the Author of Existence, what can it mean to say God exists? There is a problem in vocabulary...

From Gilead, Marilynne Robinson, p 203

Singing in Brighton

I'm going down to Brighton&Hove on Sunday to sing at a Midsummer celebration. Taking with me two guys I've just recently started playing music with, so will do a set with them and a solo set.

If you're in the vicinity, come along!

what's your favourite?

I was looking at this picture recently and amazed that all sorts of connections were pointed out in the gallery blurb except for the glaringly obvious one - that Van Gogh knew his Bible inside out.

So, blog readers, the question of the week is this: Among all your favourite art, literature, music, theatre, where have you seen a connection with a Bible story? Is it somewhere obvious like a religious painting in the National Gallery? Is it something more oblique, like a reference that you could almost miss? Is it in popular culture (like the discussion of the fatted calf in Blackadder) or in the high arts?

finger maze

this was my prayer this morning

Saved by Augustine

So a few days back I broke two teeth. Yes, two! I didn't get in a fight, I didn't eat muesli, they just broke, one after the other...

The dentist said, "you probably  bit on an olive stone or something a week or two back and cracked them, which is why they appear to have broken all by themselves." Well, that's a plausible theory. He's good, my dentist. And he says he heard me on the radio.

Cost of two new teeth? Well one, not to bad. But the other one - Astro-Nomical. OMG.

One of my lovely editors has given the green light to a Foreword I wrote for a new edition of Augustine's Confessions. "Send me an invoice," she said today. Augustine will pay for my expensive tooth. Augustine is renowned for being less than comfortable with the human body. So I'm doubly grateful that he is so generously contributing to the upkeep of mine...

The Squeeze

Lovely post with amazing photos from Dave's District Blog (one of my "must-reads" at the moment, mostly for the photos, bt sometimes the stream of consciousness grabs me too)

poppies

one of the loveliest sights around here at the moment is huge fields of red and yellow flowers - when you travel by road or train from Cambridge to Ely and Peterborough, the flat fenlands are just covered with fields like this:

I have tried to photograph them lots of times before but this pic by Jonny is way better than any of mine. Thanks JB!

beere, wyn, and jollitee...

...as Chaucher might put it. Or as we have it here in Cambridge, it's May Week. (Yes, I know it's June, but May Week is always in June.)  There's at least one May Ball each night for the next seven days, concerts, garden parties all day every day, and if there are any spare moments to be filled then there are punts to take up the river with a picnic.  I shall endeavour to stop and joy several moments of this myself. But previous experience leads me to expect that there will be some pastoral moments this week.

The expectation of this week as one long, fantastic party is scuppered for some people by overwhelming feelings of tiredness and let-down. Post-exam tiredness is a bigger monster than many anticipate, and coupled with that is the realisation for some that they are leaving Cambridge for good in a few days' time, and anxiety about the next step, or anxiety about not knowing what the next step is. Especially if the next thing is dependent upon exam results, there's that living on a knife-edge thing, not knowing whether results will launch you into option a), or option b, c, or d, or even back to the drawing board.

The week between the end of exams and the beginning of results is filled with the diversions of parties, May Bumps, croquet, concerts and all sorts of other things are great fun on the whole, but for many a great cloud of tiredness descends and a few bumpy days result. For a few, the tiredness and tension combined with the impression than everyone else is happy and carefree becomes overwhelming, and produces as personal crisis. If you (post-exam readers) are feeling low, talk to someone. Sooner rather than later. For a day or two, drink more tea and less wine, and get some sleep. A lot of sleep, in fact. It does get better, I promise you, and life will look brighter and happier a few more days down the track.

(previously published in 2006. But still so true) 

Fresh Expressions and sacraments

from Dave Male's blog:

Fresh Expressions and the Sacraments Day Conference
with Maggi Dawn
Saturday 12th September, 10am-4pm, Milton Church Hall
(cost £5)

This is the Ely Diocese’s annual day conference (which is open to all denominations etc)  We will be looking at the vital area of the role of the sacraments in developing fresh expressions of church. We will look at issues like what are the sacraments for, what can you do and how might you use communion creatively. There will be talks, workshops and seminars. For more information or to book contact Dave Male  dm432 (at) cam (dot) ac (dot) uk

 

Amazon Author

I have my very own Amazon Author page! Amazon are soon going to put all my books on it. I'm not sure how useful it is, but there it is anyway...

OK< back to writing the next book then...

The real grounds of praise

A friend and I were talking last night about fame and fortune. I've met people who, sad to say, judge their own and other people's worth on how much money they have, and on how much they are "rated" by other people. To want to be known just for the sake of it is the saddest thing in the world. There isn't anything of substance in it: what do you make or do if your only objective is to have money and be famous?

Augustine wrote about being impressed by someone's fame, rather than by their true worth:

"...that orator was of that breed whom I loved enough to want to be like him. I erred out of pride, blown about as I was by every wind... How does it come about that I loved that man rather through love of those who praised him than for the real grounds of praise? For if those same people had reviled the one they praised, and in their reviling and rejection had used the very same facts about him, I should never have been so fired and stirred. Yet certainly everything would have been the same."  Confessions IV xiv

This morning in the school playground I said hello to three friends - an author, a photographer and a priest. All of them set about their work not in order to be famous, but because they are taken up with their work. They are happy when successes come. But they write and paint and work with people and create things because that is what they want to do more than anything. What they do has a goodness and an intergrity because it isn't driven by the desire for fame or money, but bubbles up out of their gifts and callings. These are the real grounds of praise.

Quiet Day

I'm leading a "quiet day" in November on the theme of waiting and listening.

Monday 16 November 2009

Theme: Angels and Announcements: how do we listen to God?

Venue: Bishop Woodford house, Ely, Cambridgeshire

Speaker: Maggi Dawn

Cost: £25

"Advent is a time of waiting - waiting for Christmas, waiting for the future hope of Christ's coming. This day will explore themes of waiting and listening to God through the Advent stories in the Bible."

Book online or phone/email direct to BRF Quiet Days 018865 319700  events@brf.org.uk

If you book five places with your friends, the fifth one goes free. Bargain, eh?

Lectio Divina

I have always struggled with speed reading - I am not very good at it, and it is the thing I found most difficult in my PhD studies. What I have never had any trouble doing, though, is slow, meditative reading, so much so that I remember quotes, and even (though it sounds a little sad!) remember which page they are on... 

here's a neat description of Lectio Divina quoted on Andy's blog (andy is a franciscan and a firefighter)

'From the very earliest accounts of monastic practice - dating back to the fourth century - it is evident that a form of reading called lectio divina ("divine" or "spiritual reading") was essential to any deliberate spiritual life. This kind of reading is quite different from that of scanning a text for useful facts and bits of information, or advancing along an exciting plot line to a climax in the action. It is, rather, a meditative approach by which the reader seeks to savour and taste the beauty and truth of every phrase and passage. This process of contemplative reading has the effect of enkindling in the reader compunction for past behaviour that has been less than beautiful and true. At the same time, it increases the desire to seek a realm where all that is lovely and unspoiled may be found. There are four steps in lectio divina: first to read, next to meditate, then to rest in the sense of God's nearness, and, ultimately, to resolve to govern one's actions in the light of new understanding. This kind of reading is itself an act of prayer. And, indeed, it is in prayer that God manifests His Presence to us.'

thought for the day

Interesting Thought for the Day on Radio Scotland yesterday, pointed out that while public outrage may be justified, it's also worth taking a deeper look : 

"It may not be our turn this year. We don’t have to resign in disgrace. Or watch embarrassing little tidbits about ourselves tumbling out of the pages of the newspaper one after another in a steady torrent. “We are not that soldier” as the saying goes! We are not that Minister or Member of Parliament. It’s not us.

Don’t we miss a tremendous opportunity, though, when we merely stand outside the whole situation with a disgusted look on our faces?

I’m not saying that public outrage is a waste of time. It has been public outrage which has forced the issue to this point. Those of us who are wise, though, will want to sit up and take notice as to how it’s done. How do people hold on by their fingertips at a time when their careers and their personal future are in tremendous jeopardy either because they’ve screwed up or because they’ve been misunderstood or because they’ve been swamped by a wave which is bigger than they are.

Rather a lot of us will end up at some point “holding on by our fingertips”. Our marriage might fall apart rather publicly. We find that we’ve become a casualty of office politics. Something from our past catches up with us.

It’s worth our while to watch these public figures – many of whom are watching their professional and even personal lives crash and burn – to see whether one can maintain or even recover one's principles in the midst of it all – to see the degree to which courage and even altruism can be demonstrated – by a few of them - even in the midst of political disaster.

It’s like that story from 1^st Samuel where the corrupt old priest Eli comes to realize that the young boy Samuel is a prophet. Against his own interests he encourages the boy to speak even though it will cost the old man everything. Corrupt as he is – he still becomes one of the heroes in the story.

cheerful kids

The autistic boy in Stoppard's play brought a huge lump to my throat when it was revealed at the end that he was not, as it seemed, lost in his own world but saw and understood clearly what was going on.

My own son often retreats into a world of his own, and also runs away to hide when the noise gets too much. But he too has these shafts of brilliant perception. Lately he has begun to learn how jokes work. Jokes are like a foreign language to his ASD mind and it's fascinating and touching to watch him practising how to tell a joke having first learned, systematically, why other people will think it's funny. But every now and then his own quirky sense of humour breaks through  and connects with the big wide world.  Yesterday he was on a roll, and made me laugh over and over again. It reminded me of Adrian Mitchell's wonderfully optimistic defense of parenthood (in reply, of course, to Philip Larkin):

They tuck you up, your mum and dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.

Adrian Mitchell

Arcadia

Went with friends to see the new production of Arcadia at the Duke of york's on Saturday. I saw the original with Felicity Kendal, some 15 or more years back, read it for my degree, heard it again more recently on the radio. But it's so dense with ideas that I still saw plenty of new things in it, and the cast and the set of this production bring the play to life quite brilliantly.

The play all takes place in one large sitting room, in Sidley Park Derbyshire, but with two separate groups of people separated by 180 years. It opens in 1809 (the year Darwin was born) and quickly the themes of the play are presented - the turmoil between Enlightenment and Romantic ideas, the anticipation of the way chaos will disrupt mathematics and science in the future, clashing epistemological methods, and the way in which love and passion can make all of these grand ideas seem trivial. As Valentine describes it early on, sexuality is about "the Fall that Newton left out" - the apple falling becoming the icon of both science and love.  

Attraction - both mathematical and emotional - is then played out with ever more complicated connections, but although (like all Stoppard plays) it's heavy on the big ideas it is also funny, touching and inspiring. Nightingale (Neil Pearson) and Hannah (Samantha Bond) hilariously deliver their body blows to the more pretentious aspects of academia, while Valentine (Ed Stoppard) gives a couple of lengthy soliloquys on the beauty of mathematics and chaos theory which play out as seduction speeches.  He describes the way in which randomness creates "noise" from which it is difficult to elucidate patterns; but the pattern is played out on stage by the autistic brother who cannot bear actual noise, runs away from shouting, and never speaks, but who, it turns out, sees and understands far more than it appears. In the end he is the one who silently produces the missing piece of evidence for Hannah's research, and finally the two eras blend into one with two couples waltzing - in random and unpredictable patterns - around the sitting room.

OK. My five minute ramblings are no review. I missed out a lot. Suffice it to say that it made me laugh, made me think, made me cry a little, and made me think some more. We talked endlessly about it over dinner (at the fantastic Clos Maggiore) and three days later we are still talking about it and coming up with more connections. And then I got out my copy and read it again.

time and space

The proofs of my next book have just arrived. I began writing this about 18 months ago, went away to write drafts last summer, finished the first draft during Advent, sent it to the Editor, and rewrote again in February and March.

It is a funny thing, but when you read your own final draft printed off the computer, it still looks like something that you could use another year or so fixing. Even if this is the 25th draft. But when the proofs arrive, and it looks like a real book, the whole thing seems to read better; the printed page itself adds an air of authority to the whole thing. This is an illusion, of course, as eventually if you ever read parts of your own book again (which I do from time to time if I use it in talks or lectures) you see dozens of things you would write differently if you were to do it again now.

Meantime, I have been in a spiral about the book after that... writing and binning, writing and binning. Trying to write something that zings off the page, but producing pages of writing that is scholarly but very, very dull. What I'm writing needs to have some depth to it, but if it doesn't have a lightness as well no-one will want to read it. 

I completed the last book in a very tiny space in my house, a little dressing room that felt safe and womb-like. But it had begun to feel like a prison, and mentally I was still locked into the last proect. So early this week I moved my study up to the top of the house, into a guest room I rarely use. It's bigger, light and bright and spacious. Today I woke up very early today and "saw the light" - a different approach to the new book, a different structure for the whole and a different mood to each little section. It feels like a breakthrough.

wine and roses

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes,
Within a dream.

Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)

pentecost ii

My pentecost sermon was about magical realism and reading strategies, so I got to talk about Harry Potter, CS Lewis, George MacDonald and others. Phantastes in particular. Then I broke with tradition and sang a contemporary, acoustic rock song - it was something the BBC had commissioned ages ago, and I made a new arrangement for the Chapel service. 

My Chapel is full of people who appreciate choral music - half the congregation is the choir, and the rest come at least in part to enjoy the music. There are some congregations who would be deeply resistant to including other kinds of music, but my Choir is by no means stuffy - in addition to the traditional range of choral repertoire they have also performed the African Sanctus before now, and Karl Jenkins The Armed Man, and we've played a bit with some jazz and avant garde stuff and wrote a liturgy around Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. We are not bound to convention here - so perhaps it was no surprise that my song got a very warm welcome indeed. Hooray for Robinson.