Prayer after a picnic breakfast with my children

The writing is paltry and dry here, so I'm going to borrow a lyrical post from Ben Myers, to give you joy. The material world, in its innocence, its tangibility, is illuminated by our knowledge of God, and our love for him. Or, more correctly, our awareness of his love for us. Surely this is theology at its best! Theology gladdens our hearts, expands our souls, and anchors our daily pleasures in deeper Joy.

Theology that leads us into doxology.

Prayer after a picnic breakfast with my children

As a Theologian One Can Never Be Great

“With horror I read [a] statement that I was the greatest theologian of the century. That really terrified me…. What does the term ‘greatest theologian’ actually mean? … As a theologian one can never be great, but at best one remains small in one’s own way…. Let me again remind you of the donkey I referred to [earlier]. A real donkey is mentioned in the Bible, or more specifically an ass…. It was permitted to carry Jesus to Jerusalem. If I have done anything in this life of mine, I have done it as a relative of the donkey that went its way carrying an important burden. The disciples had said to its owner: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ And so it seems to have pleased God to have used me at this time, just as I was, in spite of all the things, the disagreeable things, that quite rightly are and will be said about me. Thus I was used…. I just happened to be on the spot. A theology somewhat different from the current theology was apparently needed in our time, and I was permitted to be the donkey that carried this better theology for part of the way, or tried to carry it as best I could.”

[Karl Barth, “Speech on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday Celebrations,” in Fragments Grave and Gay, 112]

Whoa, nelly!

This is - inspiring, much. Demanding, much. Beautiful, entire:

...theology requires a far great scholarly range than does any other humane science. The properly trained Christian theologian, perfectly in command of his materials, should be a proficient linguist, with a mastery of several ancient and modern tongues, should have a complete formation in the subtleties of the whole Christian dogmatic tradition, should possess a considerable knowledge of the texts and arguments produced in every period of the Church, should be a good historian, should be thoroughly trained in philosophy, ancient, medieval and modern, should have a fairly broad grasp of liturgical practice in every culture and age of the Christian world, should (ideally) possess considerable knowedge of literature, music and the plastic arts, should have an intelligent interest in the effects of theological discourse in areas such as law or economics, and so on and so forth. This is not to say that one cannot practice theology without these attainments; but such an education remains the scholarly ideal of the guild...

- David Bentley Hart.

Found here, with thanks.

Daily Rituals

You offer two corners of the sheet
we fold over and over and over again
and then in the middle we meet.
-Darren Hanlon.


Surely Odysseus could not have had a better ship
A grander sending off than this?
The sail unfurls

Transparent cotton
throws and scatters
chips of sun
on our bare feet.

We shall sail out into the day
each to work assigned
journeying through seas

Delighting in the waves
Chasing horizons and
Meeting our storms.

But in this moment we moor
set anchor

stay afloat
on shore.

You take two corners
And I the others.

The air whistles softly
Over our eiderdown harbour.

More than Me and Ted

Of all the various components that might make up a prayer (adoration, praise, thanksgiving, confession etc.), I think I find the element of intercession most difficult.

I find it difficult because it's the most easy to forget. Intercessory prayer shows me my self-centredness. It's a time when I realise that my worldview is so narrow, air-less and cramped. My attention, for the most part, is directed inwards, at my thoughts, my preoccupations, my concerns. I bring myself before God, and fill his vision with all my anxieties, my wants, my feelings.

In one sense I think this is right. I am the child, who artlessly comes before my papa, clutching my worn-out and dirty, but well-loved teddy. I sit upon my father's knee and tell him about the day I've had with my bear - our adventures, our joys, our hurts and scrapes. Never mind the greater world out there, with its larger doings and going-ons. My pervue is only for me and my bear.

Intercessory prayer takes me out of my myopic vision, to ask: what are the needs of those around me. It require me first to know the needs of those around me - and therefore to climb out of my own head and preoccupations. It then requires energetic partnership with God: How can I work, through prayer, for them? For, despite it feeling like mere thinking, or words into air, prayer is labour, and as Christians, we know it works. As one friend once wisely said: "If people are thinking, then they might be acting. But thoughts alone won't help anyone. Whereas prayers are actions in themselves."

Here's Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the transformative nature of intercessory prayers:

All Christians have their own circle of those who have requested them to intercede on their behalf, or people for whom for various reasons they know they have been called upon to pray. First of all, the circle will include those with whom they must live every day. With this we have advanced to the point at which we hear the heartbeat of all Christian life together. A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is the blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others. As far as we are concerned, there is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife, that cannot be overcome by intecessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is the purified bath into which the individual and the community must enter each day.

Life Together, page 89.

Of Cabbages and Kings

While most in Britain are gripped with Royal Wedding Fever, Australians are not impressed. A quick glance through my friends' facebook statuses (stati?) reveals that most will not have the TV switched on tonight, with one friend commenting: "I could watch the royal wedding, but I think there's a real possibility that the paint on my walls might dry out a little more tonight, and I think I'd better keep my eyes on them just in case."

A couple of good friends are so unimpressed as to rant about the hullaboo on their blog, making some good points about the unique way that Australians show affection.

I confess I'm not too excited about the whole thing either, and was tempted to boycott watching the ceremony on principle, because, well, people get married all the time, and no other couples get their faces plastered on tea-towels, mugs, ashtrays and notepads (although I guess that's not really Will and Kate's doing). Speaking of paraphenalia, you should really check out these knitted dolls! Why wed if you can't enshrine yourselves in finger puppets for your grandchildren?

However, I am going to watch the wedding, largely because I want to see what they'll do to the ceremonial side of things, and because I want to hear what Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury will preach ....

Here's a couple of thoughts on the Royal Family, however.

Most Australians, I would hazard, dislike the idea of a monarchy, because we believe in equality, and in the benefits of a meritocracy. It's foreign, that a particularly family should be exalted, simply based on pedigree. I think I am like that too: I believe in total egalitarianism (how else can a poor, immigrant child gain an education and earn a living?) And yet, watching the wedding and thinking about Royalty has made me question, whether hierarchy holds a deep truth for us.

As a child I loved the Medieval period best, because of the kings and queens; the pomp and circumstance; the pagentry and chivalry of knights and battles.

And then I grew up. I learnt about the market economy, the class argument, and the horrendous plight of the peasantry - all of which is summed up hilariously in this Monty Python sketch.

Yet the idea of Kingship, and the ideal Rule of Christ Jesus, figures hugely in the theological imagination, and thus ought to dictate our understanding of the world from a Christian perspective. It's something I find at once moving, and yet supremely difficult to reconcile.

So here are my scattered thoughts:

As I say, something about the idea of Kingship needs to be felt with the imagination. You have to 'taste' the word King - which its attendant associations of battle, splendor, power and mercy. (Think of what you felt in the more moving parts of 'Braveheart' or reading about Aslan when you were a child).

Yet kingship in our modern day and age is paltry, trite and often embarrassing. The people who we call 'royal' fail our imaginations - they are hardly heroic, glorious figures. They do not inspire confidence, let alone fealty. We speculate that Will and Kate's marriage won't last the onslaught of the years; we laugh at Eugenie and Beatrice's fashion faux pas; and even the Queen, who's my favourite of the lot, is often represented as a stodgy, stoic figure, trying to do her diplomatic best with some idiotic family members.

So we abandon kingship and hierarchy, and hold onto democracy and equality. It's the 'least worst' option, and a way of protecting human beings, from Lord Acton's dictum, that absolute power will corrupt, absolutely. Of course, it would be most sensible and practical, to abolish the English Monarchy entirely, and for Australia to become a Republic. But what if, in acquiescing to political pragmatism and modern statecraft, we cut the one remaining, tangible thread to a larger reality about what it means to be human? What if the monarchy is the one remaining conduit, through which to channel the best and noblest sentiments and ideals of citizenship - "loyalty, the concecration of secular life, and hierarchical principle, splendor, ceremony and continuity"?

For, whatever idiotic persons within the royal family itself, and whatever kind of lunacy exists in Royalty Fever, the British Monarchy reminds us of that tingly feeling we had, when we once loved kings and queens. Something of the magic of hierarchical representation and the noble idea of giving one's unreservered allegiance to one entirely beautiful and deserving, lingers on. (And a ceremonial monarchy, together with a legal democracy like what Britain has, is, I think, the best way to hold onto both.)

CS Lewis writes, upon viewing Queen Elizabeth II's coronation ceremony on television, that the ceremony wasn't conducted with a sense of triumphalism, but an overwhelming sense of pathos. The young queen herself, then only 20 or so, seemed to be visibly moved by the sacramental side of things. Those watching, felt a sense of

awe - pity - pathos - mystery. The pressing of that huge, heavy crown on that small, young head becomes a symbol of the situation of humanity itself: humanity called by God to be His vice-regent and high priest on earth, and yet feeling so inadequate.

He goes on to observe that it is as if God says, in my inexorable love for you, I raise you from dust, from mere animal creatures, to a level of reason, of apprehension, in order that you might have a relationship with me. You are crowned a little lower than angels, and upon your head I lay responsibilities, splendors, glories and dangers that are beyond your understanding.

One misses the whole point of a coronation, a royal wedding, the existence of the royal family, if we do not feel, that in some way, we have all been crowned, we have all been married, we are all princes and princesses, though in a way that is deeply tragic as well as splendid.

One misses the whole point of human royalty as well, if we cannot see that all human kings fail, and cannot exist but as a pointer to the Real King Jesus, and the real rule of a perfect human being - righteous, and full of self-giving grace.

Well, carry on, carry on.

Locust Years

Today I discovered the poet Billy Collins, who's written a couple of simple but poignant poems on forgetfulness and memorisation. I have a horrible memory, and gathering the past always feel like following a trail of bread crumbs - some have disappeared, some are lodged amongst bramble, very few are whole and worth the keeping. A slow and futile scramble.

I wondered if, in the new heavens and new earth that I look forward to, that my memory will be restored to me: all the jokes that were so good and that I swore to remember, the unforgettable quotes, consigned to notebooks but irretrievable to memory, the smell of a new city overseas, the indescribable look on a half-obscured face, countless sermons heard and gone the following week, lines of music, the lost optative verb forms, books, poems, dates, numbers, faces, places. Even the piercing moments of pain or shame, might they be given back to me, and take on a different shade of feeling?

I love that verse in Joel, when God promises, after a severe famine in the land of Israel, to "restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten." I hope those words apply metaphysically too.

*******

FORGETFULNESS

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

- Billy Collins