A  quick search on 'google' can confirm or dispel most of the half-remembered things I want answers about nowadays. The words to 'The Ash Grove', that lovely Welsh folk song; a quote from one of the prophets -quicker to look on google than leaf through the Old Testament. And a search to find out what happened to the ship I sailed to New York on in 1969.

These searches can plug gaps in knowledge- before I forget it all again- but don't go anywhere near what is needful at this time of life, ( 70+ going on 25) which is the getting of wisdom. I can cram my head full of facts, but these are ineffectual in dealing with the ups and downs of life, and the decisions which come with those peaks and troughs.

Somehow the wisdom comes from within, and not via pressing keys on a laptop. And few people can tell you how it  is obtained. For me, it is the product of my inner life, where a mix of reflected-on experience, prayer, scripture and time- time above all- has given me the small store of wisdom I fool myself that I have accumulated.

It's something to do with refining, or percolating, like rain-water through rock- till it appears again like an emerging small stream . Unremarked, unnoticed, but making a valued, refreshing mark on the landscape of my life, which I draw on to nourish my experience. For all of which, God be praised.    

Book of the month (2)

'…..and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.' These are the closing words of 'Middlemarch' about which I wrote last week. And they seem a fitting tribute to some of the characters in the book.

But more than that, these words reflect a truth which I hope would be universally recognised. I think of Simeon and particularly Anna,  there in the Temple when it came to Jesus' presentation as a child. Probably they were people whom regular worshippers there might half-recognise- 'I think they were here last time I came...' but whose faithfulness and constancy in worship would have largely passed unnoticed. We surmise from the gospel account they virtually lived in the Temple precincts. But their life was hidden from view to their generation. As it is from ours; apart from the brief incident which Luke records, we know no more.

Yet they added something to the story. A gladness they had seen God's anointed one, a prophetic voice warning Mary of pain to come because of this child, a foreseeing something of the trajectory of Jesus' life. And then they sink into the gospel narrative; we hear no more of them.

I'd like my life, indeed, every Christian's life, to be like that; a faithful life, hidden and not showy, adding to the stock of good in the world. The rest doesn't matter.

Book of the month.....

A copy of George Eliot's 'Middlemarch' has been sitting in one of our bookcases- unread- since 1981;  the book-plate on the inner cover gives that date. And now I am over two-thirds through it, and find it, eventually, unput-down-able. I was a bit slow to get into it just after Christmas, and put it aside for a book acquired as a Christmas present, but now...…… every spare moment seems taken up with it. It will be the middle of the week before it is finished, and I hope for neat and tidy endings with regard to the fate of all the main characters, although I fear that the plot has set up so many conflicts, that this hope will not be fulfilled.

My experience of the faith has some similarities with the process of reading 'Middlemarch'. Invest in it, and it becomes all-absorbing. Lay it aside, neglect it, and other interests supervene. I cannot say that neat and tidy endings are part of the faith; life is too varied for that. But the broad canvas             (cosmic in scope in the case of the faith), interest in the outcomes of people's affairs, and wanting the best for them; a benign understanding of the frailty of human behaviour, uncertainty as to how the future might unfold; all these are part of how our story is taken up into God's story.
And as with 'Middlemarch', the omniscient author will, I'm sure, bring it to a satisfactory ending.  

News to share

Mary and I lunched one day last week at our local Further Education college; like many another, it runs its own training restaurant, where we were the subjects of assiduous attention, and ate lovely food in pleasant and quiet surroundings, at a very reasonable price.
And apart from two ladies, whom I guess were regular diners there, and an official party of local mayors who looked at though they were being wined, dined and wooed in a PR exercise by the college's great and good, we were the only diners.
Here's the dilemma; do we keep this  'find' to ourselves, in the hope it retains its quietness and appeal, or do we spread the word, believing this can do nothing but boost this facility and its lovely young people? Privatise or publicise?
Good news is for sharing ( just as bad news is, too, unfortunately- it's usually called gossip). So not only do we intend to go again, but also tell folk about this experience too. It should be like this with the faith, but then buttoned-upness, Englishness, not embarrassing folk, and all the rest get in the way.....

The experience at lunch was good. I have no hesitation in saying that. And, slightly less confidently, lest I should offend, could I say, please, if it's ok with you, that my experience of God is so good, it's almost beyond words. Sorry. I know we're not supposed to talk about God, and all that...…….  

Resurrection life......

I came across a quote I wrote many years ago in a notebook I found again this week; 'we are not to give passive assent to a fact in a creed, but to participate in the life of the resurrected Jesus.' Ouch! The challenge rings true in my heart; so much of what we take for the faith in the west is a passive acknowledgement  of a credal statement, rather than a vital demonstration of what the faith is about.

I'm as guilty as the rest. And it's difficult to work my way back through all the processes of western thought and its twists and turns, to where belief and lived experience were so intertwined that the gap was negligible; probably a mythical place, I acknowledge, but maybe there was a state, way back when, where apprehension of the resurrection led, sans complications, to a life imbued with that resurrection force.

But I pray that in spite of all the cultural accretions, the intellect, the doubts, the anxieties, which I have put between myself and The Life, somehow I may live it. And that it may be recognised in some small way as having the stamp of God in it.

Is that how it is with you-?        

The faithful few

A late call to a nearby parish to preside at their midweek communion; this finds me with a congregation of ten faithful souls saying the familiar words, making the familiar confession and declaration of faith. Do not hear complaint in the fact there were ten; for a small village, and midweek, this is nothing to complain about. It is the faith and prayers of these folk which keeps the Anglican flame alive in rural parishes, keeps the churches open, ready to welcome, keeps some heart to villages where maybe the pub has closed, the school is in danger of closing, the bus service is not what it used to be, and community life, such as it is, is increasingly the prerogative of the elderly, as younger families retreat behind their doors for the joys of their home cinema.

And our prayers in the communion service brings all this and more before God. We are not there for ourselves, but as those who seek the kingdom heaven here on earth in our community. Imperfect as we are, and with often competing visions as to what that kingdom may look like here, nevertheless we pray 'thy kingdom come, thy will be done'. And we do our bit, motivated by the love which will not let us go, the different glimpses we have seen of glory, the common understanding of being somewhere in the narrative of redemption for our village, our community, our day, ourselves.

'We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, for by your holy cross you have redeemed  all the world'. Yes, Lord, I believe. Now, I'll just call and see if Mr. Jones needs any shopping.

This painting life

Transforming the kitchen from its dark blue to a more welcoming and warmer yellow ('Banana Split' is the official colour; I would describe it as 'custard yellow') has been the major task this week. It has demanded four coats of paint, to obliterate any trace of the blue beneath; hard work in confined spaces above the kitchen cabinets, and when not that, fiddly work around all the electrical sockets. And then there was the preparation, and the cleaning of the brushes; the detailed work with a small paintbrush in those annoying bits the bigger brushes couldn't adequate cover; and work with a razor blade to scrape off paint that shouldn't have covered the window frames etc.

But transformation has been achieved. At a cost of aching bones, as I've stretched into positions the aged body didn't know it was capable of, and sweaty work up close up to the LED kitchen lights. All of which, as I transfer these thoughts into a more spiritual framework, makes me thankful for the infinite patience of God's Holy Spirit as he works with me to achieve something like an image of Jesus to be seen through me. Not just a paint job, but the promised transformation of me ( and indeed humanity and all of creation) into something resembling Christ. In that work, there's a lot to clean up in me, to rub down, to get into the detail.

I'm a work in progress, as I've said before. Expect no 'Mona Lisa' , but do expect something which shows the hand of a master behind it.