The last two weeks have been pretty busy and a bit stressful, so I have been finding a bit of peace and quiet in a couple of books: a favourite, and a new book by a favourite author. The old favourites are the Harry Pottter series from the beginning all over again. This time it's quite interesting re-reading them because of our trip to Leavesden Studios in the UK for the Harry Potter tour. It was one of our must-dos on our (extensive) list of places we went. Each of us came up with some things we wanted to see and then we whittled down the list - well, if I'm honest, we took a sword to my list to chop it down to something even faintly resembling a reasonable length! The Harry Potter tour was on our daughter's must-do list and we were all quite happy to oblige her!
But back to the books. It's slightly odd re-reading them this time because of having visited the sets. Sure, I had my own vision of what the places looked like from my imagination, that was then coloured by the movies, but actually seeing the sets myself and walking among them has made this re-reading an unusually interesting and rich experience.
The other book I've been pursuing, somewhat slower because it requires more concentration, is the wonderful Silence: a Christian history by the outstanding scholar and church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch. Professor MacCulloch has been one of my favourite historians for some time now, ever since my brother sent over recordings of his outstanding BBC documentaries on the history of the church that accompanied his brilliant (but extremely large!) book Christianity: the first three thousand years (yes, you did read that right). I got that book and read my way slowly through it (it's about two inches thick - it took me a while!), and have been planning to read the Silence book ever since I heard that he was writing on monasticism.
I finally got my hands on it and it is a really interesting take on church history: not only does it look at monastic silences, but the silences of shame, of politics, of collusion, of power and powerlessness, of "heretics" and women, black people and gays. It looks at the way silence is used to bring us closer to God, and to hide us away, to control and release us. He describes the Protestant Reformation as one of the noisiest periods of church history and the loss of personal silence before God (deeply distrusted by magisterial Reformers) as something that took centuries to come back. I am about half-way through and it is almost as much of a challenge, though in a different way, as the wonderful She Who Is (Elizabeth Johnston) that I read last year.
Professor MacCulloch writes his history "from below": he has a deep, inbuilt understanding of the hidden silences of the church from his own experience as a gay man, so he is particularly alert to the experiences of silence, power and powerlessness experienced by other groups. It chimes with another book I was reading recently called The War on Heresy, another intriguing take on history that suggests that the inquisition and the Albigensian Crusade weren't actually about belief at all, but about the use, establishment, and abuse of power, and there was no real "Cathar church", contrary to what the surviving medieval manuscripts say (to the victors, the spoils!).
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
20 July 2015
12 July 2015
Booking
The last few nights have been rather fun. After our big trip to the UK in January, we decided we wanted to preserve the photos in a more permanent way than the usual photo album or digitally on hubby's computer. We kept our eye out and got a great deal on an A3 full-colour 52-page hardcover photo book. Hubby's been slowly editing our photos as he's had time around students and decorating - helped by a "yes, yes, no, yes, no, no, yes" session when we sat down together and identified the photos we wanted to include that he then edited for us.
The last three nights, we've been putting the photo book together: hubby finishing the editing then handing the photo files over to me for upload into the photo book software. It was surprisingly easy to use and had a number of layouts and other features we could use to make the book look the way we wanted. I decided to eschew the "other features" like frames and fake photo corners etc, and just let hubby's photos speak for themselves. In the end, I also left off text, which I had originally planned to include.
Tonight, we finished it. The awesome bit was that originally I had put most of the Hogwarts/Harry Potter tour photos on two pages, and the British Museum stuff on one page. When I got to the end of the album, I had two pages unused - so I was able to insert those pages into the centre of the book and give the museum and tour a lot more space.
There is no way I could capture the British Museum in a double-page spread, so I didn't try. We were only there for a morning (we could have stayed for weeks!) and we went with a specific agenda: the Elgin marbles, the Mildenhall Treasure, and the Egyptian exhibits. We also found a lot of other cool stuff, including the Viking chess pieces and lot of wonderful Greek and Etruscan statuary, and some beautiful Venetian glass when we were trying to find the treasure. I tried to show those key things on the spread, but I will always remember the Celtic torcs and the altarpieces.... The pages showing Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster really capture the way I felt about those places, and overall I'm really happy with it. And we've got Mallard and Rocket in there, one from the National Rail Museum in York, the other from the Science Museum in London.
There was so much more we could have put in, but it's only a place of memories, to trigger our own recollections of what we did and where we went. I fired it off for printing tonight, and it will be amazing when it comes to see those photos full size - the editing program meant each page was not much more than A5 on screen. It was a lot of fun too - but so hard, deciding which of hubby's wonderful photos went in, and which ones couldn't: he had about 3000 photos from the trip, which we cut down to 300 for the album, some of which didn't make it in.... The joys of going overseas with a photographer!
The last three nights, we've been putting the photo book together: hubby finishing the editing then handing the photo files over to me for upload into the photo book software. It was surprisingly easy to use and had a number of layouts and other features we could use to make the book look the way we wanted. I decided to eschew the "other features" like frames and fake photo corners etc, and just let hubby's photos speak for themselves. In the end, I also left off text, which I had originally planned to include.
Tonight, we finished it. The awesome bit was that originally I had put most of the Hogwarts/Harry Potter tour photos on two pages, and the British Museum stuff on one page. When I got to the end of the album, I had two pages unused - so I was able to insert those pages into the centre of the book and give the museum and tour a lot more space.
There is no way I could capture the British Museum in a double-page spread, so I didn't try. We were only there for a morning (we could have stayed for weeks!) and we went with a specific agenda: the Elgin marbles, the Mildenhall Treasure, and the Egyptian exhibits. We also found a lot of other cool stuff, including the Viking chess pieces and lot of wonderful Greek and Etruscan statuary, and some beautiful Venetian glass when we were trying to find the treasure. I tried to show those key things on the spread, but I will always remember the Celtic torcs and the altarpieces.... The pages showing Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster really capture the way I felt about those places, and overall I'm really happy with it. And we've got Mallard and Rocket in there, one from the National Rail Museum in York, the other from the Science Museum in London.
There was so much more we could have put in, but it's only a place of memories, to trigger our own recollections of what we did and where we went. I fired it off for printing tonight, and it will be amazing when it comes to see those photos full size - the editing program meant each page was not much more than A5 on screen. It was a lot of fun too - but so hard, deciding which of hubby's wonderful photos went in, and which ones couldn't: he had about 3000 photos from the trip, which we cut down to 300 for the album, some of which didn't make it in.... The joys of going overseas with a photographer!
20 May 2015
Speaking faith
Tonight I am sitting here in the cold of an autumn night with the cat next to me on the arm of my chair, reflecting on a blog post I have just read. John Shore has rapidly become one of my heroes of the faith: a passionate, articulate person who has shown me that there are others out there that think like me, that my lonely faith journey here in smalltown New Zealand isn't alone. The story I read is entitled Eight "Bible-believing" churches vs one progressive church, and it is a sad indictment of the narrowness and sickness of the "fundamentalist" and "evangelical" churches that I left with relief 15 years ago.
At the bottom of that article, John has a summary of what a progressive Christianity could look like, and I want to summarise his summary here in my own words. This is a good summary of what I have come to know over the past 15 years or so.
At the bottom of that article, John has a summary of what a progressive Christianity could look like, and I want to summarise his summary here in my own words. This is a good summary of what I have come to know over the past 15 years or so.
- Jesus was divine, but Jesus was also human. Jesus allowed the crucifixion as evidence of God's love for us - it was never any kind of punishment or "substitution" for us - it was an act of ultimate love.
- The Bible is not a contract or literally dictated by God. It is a complex set of different kinds of literature that is human's record of God's dealings, filtered through their understanding and time period. God always requires us to choose love, compassion, and kindness over any other action or so-called biblical law because love is the highest good there is - God is love, and where there is love, there is God.
- Christianity is about nothing more (or less) than living a loving, caring life that is gentle towards all others, and towards the earth.
- Where there is love, there is God. Love comes in many forms, and can and does include love between people of the same gender. The scholarship stating that St Paul never wrote anything condemning homosexual love is much more convincing than the scholarship claiming he did.
- God does not require any person to submit to another in an unequal power relationship, including between men and women.
- God is beyond gender, and therefore it is as accurate to speak of God as she as it is as he. Sophia is an ancient naming of God that is totally valid biblically and historically.
- God introduces herself in history through many different ways, places, and people. There is true knowledge of God everywhere that people love and are loved, and in the stories where we are taught to love and act with compassion.
- There is no support in the Bible for a hell where people are eternally punished, nor is this consistent with a God that loves us inordinately.
- God loves us and wants to teach us, not punish us. God uses ordinary everyday circumstances to do this.
- God and power are not normally a good mix. Church and state are separate and should remain so, but we who love God are called to speak truth to power in love.
- We are called to love. God handles the rest.
- God made it, evolution shapes it. There is not, nor has there ever been, any conflict between faith and science. God created the capacity for change and growth in all things, just as God herself changes and grows. God delights in our human curiosity and desire for knowledge, because God made us that way!
- Divorce is not immoral and in some cases is a good idea where power is being misused. God loves everyone, even when relationships don't work.
- Our identifier as to whether we are truly God's is how we treat each other.
- God gave us a brain, a will, and a desire to learn. Asking questions is right, and "because the Bible says so" is not an answer - it is an interpretation. The bible is always open to interpretation, but if the interpretation means someone acts without love to others, their interpretation cannot be true. God never guides us to act without love.
15 May 2015
Missing liturgy
A while ago, I reflected on whether it was possible to be homesick for a place I have only been once. I concluded it was eminently possible: Canterbury Cathedral has so stamped itself on my heart that I know I will never truly be the same. It is the heart of our ancient faith in England (although not the oldest place of worship there), a place of worship and pilgrimage and seeking for more than 1500 years.
I knew when we came home that it would be difficult to come back from the visceral, whole-of-body, whole-spirit experience of cathedral worship in the UK: where the very stones seem to be painted with prayer and the whole place shimmers with the organ and the bells and the singing; incense, beeswax, body and blood. Immersive church, where everything is done excellently, reverently, and with holy purpose.
Sure, it's not perfect: they've only just figured out that women are called to the episcopate too (we're 25 years ahead of them there!) and the language is seriously patriarchal - but there is hope in the movements of inclusive church that that will change. What won't is the desire to do all things "decently and in order", with love and passion and skill.
What I have realised is that I need that liturgy done with love and passion and skill. I need the music and love and prayer and holy purpose. I need the Office, the daily round of prayer, painted on my heart like light through stained glass. I need this. Liturgy done poorly, bad music, trite lyrics - I cannot separate myself from it. It becomes like sandpaper on my soul, grinding me in all my most tender places.
Some people might say this is me being overly sensitive, too "high", not being "of the people" - snobbish, even. But for me, worship is not of the people. It is our gift to God, and should it not be the best of what we are capable? It should be the best music, the best singing, the best words, trusting that God, by some alchemy of her own, will make them worthy of her worthiness, for nothing we offer God will ever be enough. But it should be beautiful.
And when it is not, then it is time to listen to what my heart says, what my spirit knows. I cannot return to Canterbury, but our pilgrimage there has shown me my heart. I need to be honest to myself and I cannot hide any longer.
I knew when we came home that it would be difficult to come back from the visceral, whole-of-body, whole-spirit experience of cathedral worship in the UK: where the very stones seem to be painted with prayer and the whole place shimmers with the organ and the bells and the singing; incense, beeswax, body and blood. Immersive church, where everything is done excellently, reverently, and with holy purpose.
Sure, it's not perfect: they've only just figured out that women are called to the episcopate too (we're 25 years ahead of them there!) and the language is seriously patriarchal - but there is hope in the movements of inclusive church that that will change. What won't is the desire to do all things "decently and in order", with love and passion and skill.
What I have realised is that I need that liturgy done with love and passion and skill. I need the music and love and prayer and holy purpose. I need the Office, the daily round of prayer, painted on my heart like light through stained glass. I need this. Liturgy done poorly, bad music, trite lyrics - I cannot separate myself from it. It becomes like sandpaper on my soul, grinding me in all my most tender places.
Some people might say this is me being overly sensitive, too "high", not being "of the people" - snobbish, even. But for me, worship is not of the people. It is our gift to God, and should it not be the best of what we are capable? It should be the best music, the best singing, the best words, trusting that God, by some alchemy of her own, will make them worthy of her worthiness, for nothing we offer God will ever be enough. But it should be beautiful.
And when it is not, then it is time to listen to what my heart says, what my spirit knows. I cannot return to Canterbury, but our pilgrimage there has shown me my heart. I need to be honest to myself and I cannot hide any longer.
19 January 2015
And the truth comes out
Okay, there's a reason that the blog was a bit sparse leading into December and so far this year. We were planning, and executing, a major family holiday to the UK, and didn't want to splash it around digital media that we were away. I had no mental space for anything but finishing up work before Christmas and finalising arrangements for us being away: packing, booking stuff, sorting out keys for house-sitters etc, so the blog suffered a little!
We left Rotorua on Christmas Eve, driving up to Auckland, where we stayed with hubby's parents in the place they were house-sitting. We had a family Christmas with his family and my sister-in-law's family, which was very chilled out - barbeque and salad for Christmas is pretty much perfect here. Hubby, daughter and I went to Holy Trinity Cathedral for the Christmas Day sung eucharist, which was very special as it was the 200th anniversary, to the day, of the arrival of Christianity to New Zealand, when Samuel Marsden accepted an invitation from the Bay of Islands chiefs to preach to them in Oihi Bay. And for the cynics amongst us, Marsden spoke fairly good Maori and was good friends with a couple of chiefs who already spoke good English, so yes the message would have got across! It was special being in our northenmost cathedral for that day - had we not been going to the UK we would have gone up to Oihi Bay to be part of the celebrations. It was also very special to spend Christmas at Holy Trinity, as one of my old friends is the Dean there and it was lovely to see her and to launch our pilgrimage there.
We flew out on Boxing Day in blazing summer sunshine, travelling via Sydney, Abu Dhabi, and finally into Manchester. The journey was long, with very minimal breaks between flights, and I had to keep track of three passports, 9 boarding passes (3 each), four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a pukeko in a ponga tree.... We figured it out that we spent 27 hours in the air and about 36 hours in transit gate to gate, and somehow we landed on the day after we left. Don't anyone try to explain that to me - as far as I am concerned it's all witchcraft!
However, the "day after we left" was somewhat different to the day we left. It was about 27degC when we left Auckland; Manchester was about -1degC with around 12-15cm of snow on the ground. Yes, snow. And 2-3cm of compacted ice on the roads, most of which hadn't been swept because the snow had only just stopped falling. Once we had collected our rental car (a Peugeot 208 - very nice to drive!), we discovered that the feral GPS wanted to take us to Sheffield over the Peak District, and the road was closed. So we had to find an alternative and the GPS wouldn't co-operate - we navigated nearly blind in the snow and took the long route from Manchester, up towards Leeds on the M67, and then down the M1 (once we found it) - the M1 was a little startling as the usual 3 lanes were reduced to around two-ish (because they'd only swept and salted some of it).
It was a slow trip to Sheffield, and when we got there, Feral GPS took us up a steepish lane that had not been swept and had about 5cm of compacted ice on it - by the time we discovered how steep it was, we couldn't turn around. The traction control on the Peugeot was working overtime, and we needed a push up some of it... And then we had to dig out hubby's grandma's driveway of about 20-25cm of fresh snow so we could park the car.
So a bit of an eventful start to the trip. Gosh it was cold!! And it was dark when we landed at just after 7am - the sun didn't rise until 8ish, and it was dark by 4pm. It felt weird that the sun at 9am in New Zealand is higher in the sky than at any time during any of the English days!
More to come on the trip later....
We left Rotorua on Christmas Eve, driving up to Auckland, where we stayed with hubby's parents in the place they were house-sitting. We had a family Christmas with his family and my sister-in-law's family, which was very chilled out - barbeque and salad for Christmas is pretty much perfect here. Hubby, daughter and I went to Holy Trinity Cathedral for the Christmas Day sung eucharist, which was very special as it was the 200th anniversary, to the day, of the arrival of Christianity to New Zealand, when Samuel Marsden accepted an invitation from the Bay of Islands chiefs to preach to them in Oihi Bay. And for the cynics amongst us, Marsden spoke fairly good Maori and was good friends with a couple of chiefs who already spoke good English, so yes the message would have got across! It was special being in our northenmost cathedral for that day - had we not been going to the UK we would have gone up to Oihi Bay to be part of the celebrations. It was also very special to spend Christmas at Holy Trinity, as one of my old friends is the Dean there and it was lovely to see her and to launch our pilgrimage there.
We flew out on Boxing Day in blazing summer sunshine, travelling via Sydney, Abu Dhabi, and finally into Manchester. The journey was long, with very minimal breaks between flights, and I had to keep track of three passports, 9 boarding passes (3 each), four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a pukeko in a ponga tree.... We figured it out that we spent 27 hours in the air and about 36 hours in transit gate to gate, and somehow we landed on the day after we left. Don't anyone try to explain that to me - as far as I am concerned it's all witchcraft!
However, the "day after we left" was somewhat different to the day we left. It was about 27degC when we left Auckland; Manchester was about -1degC with around 12-15cm of snow on the ground. Yes, snow. And 2-3cm of compacted ice on the roads, most of which hadn't been swept because the snow had only just stopped falling. Once we had collected our rental car (a Peugeot 208 - very nice to drive!), we discovered that the feral GPS wanted to take us to Sheffield over the Peak District, and the road was closed. So we had to find an alternative and the GPS wouldn't co-operate - we navigated nearly blind in the snow and took the long route from Manchester, up towards Leeds on the M67, and then down the M1 (once we found it) - the M1 was a little startling as the usual 3 lanes were reduced to around two-ish (because they'd only swept and salted some of it).
It was a slow trip to Sheffield, and when we got there, Feral GPS took us up a steepish lane that had not been swept and had about 5cm of compacted ice on it - by the time we discovered how steep it was, we couldn't turn around. The traction control on the Peugeot was working overtime, and we needed a push up some of it... And then we had to dig out hubby's grandma's driveway of about 20-25cm of fresh snow so we could park the car.
So a bit of an eventful start to the trip. Gosh it was cold!! And it was dark when we landed at just after 7am - the sun didn't rise until 8ish, and it was dark by 4pm. It felt weird that the sun at 9am in New Zealand is higher in the sky than at any time during any of the English days!
More to come on the trip later....
5 July 2014
She who is - for me
It doesn't seem like nearly a whole month since I last blogged, but the calendar tells a different tale!
The usual lots going on, but there is one thing that I'm thinking about a lot. In my last post, I talked about some niggles I was experiencing over the naming of God and the location of women's experience in our history and traditions. I have continued to explore those issues. Hubby and I are reading She Who Is: the mystery of God in feminist theological discourse, by the wonderful Sr Elizabeth Johnson. Her book is a comprehensive theological and biblical analysis of images of God, testing the hypothesis that there are images of God that are feminine in our tradition, the biblical text, and classical and contemporary theology, and more importantly, that we need to recover these images because our language defines our experience. Women cannot experience the wholeness of the imago dei, bring made in God's own image, if they cannot find language for God taken from our experience as women.
I was willing to test this hypothesis, and I found, to my surprise and my joy, that the text, history, and theology fully supports images and language for God that is female. Wisdom, the Spirit of God, is consistently spoken of as "she" in the wisdom literature. El Shaddai is an image of God as "the breasted one" (from shad, breast - an alternative extraction can also be from the word for mountain -which looks like a breast!). The Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters like a mother bird. God gathers us under her wings like a mother bird gathers her chicks. We together raised an objection in that Jesus refers to God as "abba" - "father": but in the analysis of the biblical texts, Jesus calling God father is used '4 times in Mark, 15 in Luke, 49 in Matthew, and 109 in John' (Johnson, p.81) - which when you lay these alongside the dates of the creation of the gospels, shows clearly that this usage is reflecting a growing tradition rather than necessarily the actual language of Jesus himself.
We're only halfway through, but already I find a change in me. Finding and using the images of God as mother, as Sophia, as She who Is, is invigorating my prayer and my understanding of myself as being the bearer of God's image and likeness. A flawed mirror I might be, but at least I can reflect, in my whole person and in my essential femaleness, God's wholeness and essential nature as divine, beyond gender and containing the fullness of femaleness and maleness. I am in God as God as in me. God, the Breasted One, Sophia, the creator of all, the one who breathes fresh life into the world and its people, is the ground of my being, and she is the brightness and love and joy and wisdom of this world.
I have moved, too, from my previous version of the Divine Office (Benedictine Daily Prayer, that I had been using since 2012). I found suddenly that I kept getting tripped up in the language and imagery for God, and it was interrupting my prayer. I discovered that the sisters of the Order of St Helena had retranslated and re-imaged their Breviary to find expansive language for God through a process of over 20 years - not just replacing "father" with God or gender-neutral pronouns, but truly looking for the images of God that have always been there but hidden. And bless them, they made their work available to others. The Monastic Breviary (available now only in pdf) even includes their chant tunes, and shows the years and years they spent with the texts, praying and chanting them, trying to find the right words and feelings and expressions for God's grace that does not use masculine pronouns or images for God. And the result is stunning. I haven't felt so joyous in my prayer of the Office for years. I've used many versions of the Divine Office in the last 15 years, but this is probably the most influential and the most beautiful.
I have also found The Inclusive Bible, another 20-year translation project undertaken by scholars of the highest order, seeking to do justly by the text and images of God, male and female. That only arrived yesterday, but again I find myself approaching the texts with joy again. I read through the first 15 chapters of Genesis last night, and I was stunned. I am extremely familiar with ch.1-3, having spent a large chunk of time in my Judaism studies with that text, and another large chunk when I was at theological college studying the Pentateuch. I've read it in Hebrew and in many different English translations, analysed it, pulled it apart, theologised over it, agonised with it, and lived with it in a scholarly and personal way for long enough to recognise when the scholarship is good. And the scholarship as shown in this translation is superb. It captures the wonderful word-play of the Yahwist author in ch.2-3, and shows the grandeur and beauty of the Priestly author of ch.1. All of this, and it reads aloud beautifully. I also dipped into several of my favourite NT passages to compare the translation, and I love it.
What's more, I read some of it aloud to small daughter tonight, and it was amazing to see her eyes light up like stars. She heard her own experiences reflected in the biblical stories for the first time, and it was a beautiful thing to see.
So, can my image of God expand? Can I reflect more of God if I break the patriarchial idol of masculine language for God? Yes, and yes, and yes again. I can find more of God, more of God's nature, more of God's essential goodness and being-with-us, if I allow myself to trust that female images and language for God are essential to allowing myself to see God's fullness of work in the world, in and through us. I only hope I am up to the challenge. Sophia, She who Is, the ground of my being, the source of life and truth, wholeness, healing and challenge for the whole world, the God who holds the universe and continually breathes it into being. It's going to be an interesting journey!
The usual lots going on, but there is one thing that I'm thinking about a lot. In my last post, I talked about some niggles I was experiencing over the naming of God and the location of women's experience in our history and traditions. I have continued to explore those issues. Hubby and I are reading She Who Is: the mystery of God in feminist theological discourse, by the wonderful Sr Elizabeth Johnson. Her book is a comprehensive theological and biblical analysis of images of God, testing the hypothesis that there are images of God that are feminine in our tradition, the biblical text, and classical and contemporary theology, and more importantly, that we need to recover these images because our language defines our experience. Women cannot experience the wholeness of the imago dei, bring made in God's own image, if they cannot find language for God taken from our experience as women.
I was willing to test this hypothesis, and I found, to my surprise and my joy, that the text, history, and theology fully supports images and language for God that is female. Wisdom, the Spirit of God, is consistently spoken of as "she" in the wisdom literature. El Shaddai is an image of God as "the breasted one" (from shad, breast - an alternative extraction can also be from the word for mountain -which looks like a breast!). The Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters like a mother bird. God gathers us under her wings like a mother bird gathers her chicks. We together raised an objection in that Jesus refers to God as "abba" - "father": but in the analysis of the biblical texts, Jesus calling God father is used '4 times in Mark, 15 in Luke, 49 in Matthew, and 109 in John' (Johnson, p.81) - which when you lay these alongside the dates of the creation of the gospels, shows clearly that this usage is reflecting a growing tradition rather than necessarily the actual language of Jesus himself.
We're only halfway through, but already I find a change in me. Finding and using the images of God as mother, as Sophia, as She who Is, is invigorating my prayer and my understanding of myself as being the bearer of God's image and likeness. A flawed mirror I might be, but at least I can reflect, in my whole person and in my essential femaleness, God's wholeness and essential nature as divine, beyond gender and containing the fullness of femaleness and maleness. I am in God as God as in me. God, the Breasted One, Sophia, the creator of all, the one who breathes fresh life into the world and its people, is the ground of my being, and she is the brightness and love and joy and wisdom of this world.
I have moved, too, from my previous version of the Divine Office (Benedictine Daily Prayer, that I had been using since 2012). I found suddenly that I kept getting tripped up in the language and imagery for God, and it was interrupting my prayer. I discovered that the sisters of the Order of St Helena had retranslated and re-imaged their Breviary to find expansive language for God through a process of over 20 years - not just replacing "father" with God or gender-neutral pronouns, but truly looking for the images of God that have always been there but hidden. And bless them, they made their work available to others. The Monastic Breviary (available now only in pdf) even includes their chant tunes, and shows the years and years they spent with the texts, praying and chanting them, trying to find the right words and feelings and expressions for God's grace that does not use masculine pronouns or images for God. And the result is stunning. I haven't felt so joyous in my prayer of the Office for years. I've used many versions of the Divine Office in the last 15 years, but this is probably the most influential and the most beautiful.
I have also found The Inclusive Bible, another 20-year translation project undertaken by scholars of the highest order, seeking to do justly by the text and images of God, male and female. That only arrived yesterday, but again I find myself approaching the texts with joy again. I read through the first 15 chapters of Genesis last night, and I was stunned. I am extremely familiar with ch.1-3, having spent a large chunk of time in my Judaism studies with that text, and another large chunk when I was at theological college studying the Pentateuch. I've read it in Hebrew and in many different English translations, analysed it, pulled it apart, theologised over it, agonised with it, and lived with it in a scholarly and personal way for long enough to recognise when the scholarship is good. And the scholarship as shown in this translation is superb. It captures the wonderful word-play of the Yahwist author in ch.2-3, and shows the grandeur and beauty of the Priestly author of ch.1. All of this, and it reads aloud beautifully. I also dipped into several of my favourite NT passages to compare the translation, and I love it.
What's more, I read some of it aloud to small daughter tonight, and it was amazing to see her eyes light up like stars. She heard her own experiences reflected in the biblical stories for the first time, and it was a beautiful thing to see.
So, can my image of God expand? Can I reflect more of God if I break the patriarchial idol of masculine language for God? Yes, and yes, and yes again. I can find more of God, more of God's nature, more of God's essential goodness and being-with-us, if I allow myself to trust that female images and language for God are essential to allowing myself to see God's fullness of work in the world, in and through us. I only hope I am up to the challenge. Sophia, She who Is, the ground of my being, the source of life and truth, wholeness, healing and challenge for the whole world, the God who holds the universe and continually breathes it into being. It's going to be an interesting journey!
21 April 2014
More fifth mark and other things
Today was a productive day, in and around regular rain showers. Daughter and I tidied up the detritus of her term at school around her desk and under her bed, and then dodged the rain to sort out the strip of garden behind the shed to plant some of the herb and pansy seeds. This means two sets of gardening in two weeks which is pretty much a record for me!
It went quite well because we'd headed off to Bunnings first and acquired a proper hoe and hand digging and clearing tools, along with some compost and a bag of bark. The compost went on the garden we cleared where the seeds were going, and the bark on another bit that hubby cleared around the front. I was stunned how fast the hoe sorted out the weeds - 10 minutes and most of them were gone, with another ten or so to sort out the ones with stubborn root systems using the hand tools. It felt pretty good too!
Now the interesting bit will be whether the seeds grow or not.
Last night we took daughter to The Lego Movie, which was a heap of fun, with masses of references that kept hubby and I cracking up laughing. The story was surprisingly strong, well scripted, and very clever. Probably my favourite bit was when the main characters were on a pirate ship attempting to build a space ship but didn't have a hyperdrive (this is Lego, remember - you can build anything!) and the Lego version of the Millennium Falcon arrived (complete with Lego C-3PO, Lego Han Solo and other characters from Star Wars) and Lego Batman jumped ship and stole their hyperdrive... only in Lego, seriously. There was also strategic placement of "human relics" including a piece of old sticking plaster, a scalpel blade, and glue.... And a number of annoyingly catchy songs. All in all, a good night out and one we will definitely look to get on DVD. 5 stars from me.
And the rest of the Easter Triduum, I hear you say? Good Friday liturgy was quiet, reflective, and well done. Holy Saturday felt empty and cold, and Easter Day was good - although I missed singing the Alleluias and the Gloria again (they did 476 so we didn't even use the Gloria at all!).
Tonight was spent salivating over the gorgeous A4 Pacific-class steam locomotives in the fascinating BBC documentary Locomotion: Dan Snow's history of railways, which we've been enjoying on ChoiceTV recently. The beautiful Mallard and her sisters still have the power to make me drool. They look so sleek and so wonderfully fast. I seem to remember it was one of the few really famous classes of steam loco that we didn't have a model of when I was a girl, but it was the one we all wanted!
It went quite well because we'd headed off to Bunnings first and acquired a proper hoe and hand digging and clearing tools, along with some compost and a bag of bark. The compost went on the garden we cleared where the seeds were going, and the bark on another bit that hubby cleared around the front. I was stunned how fast the hoe sorted out the weeds - 10 minutes and most of them were gone, with another ten or so to sort out the ones with stubborn root systems using the hand tools. It felt pretty good too!
Now the interesting bit will be whether the seeds grow or not.
Last night we took daughter to The Lego Movie, which was a heap of fun, with masses of references that kept hubby and I cracking up laughing. The story was surprisingly strong, well scripted, and very clever. Probably my favourite bit was when the main characters were on a pirate ship attempting to build a space ship but didn't have a hyperdrive (this is Lego, remember - you can build anything!) and the Lego version of the Millennium Falcon arrived (complete with Lego C-3PO, Lego Han Solo and other characters from Star Wars) and Lego Batman jumped ship and stole their hyperdrive... only in Lego, seriously. There was also strategic placement of "human relics" including a piece of old sticking plaster, a scalpel blade, and glue.... And a number of annoyingly catchy songs. All in all, a good night out and one we will definitely look to get on DVD. 5 stars from me.
And the rest of the Easter Triduum, I hear you say? Good Friday liturgy was quiet, reflective, and well done. Holy Saturday felt empty and cold, and Easter Day was good - although I missed singing the Alleluias and the Gloria again (they did 476 so we didn't even use the Gloria at all!).
Tonight was spent salivating over the gorgeous A4 Pacific-class steam locomotives in the fascinating BBC documentary Locomotion: Dan Snow's history of railways, which we've been enjoying on ChoiceTV recently. The beautiful Mallard and her sisters still have the power to make me drool. They look so sleek and so wonderfully fast. I seem to remember it was one of the few really famous classes of steam loco that we didn't have a model of when I was a girl, but it was the one we all wanted!
10 April 2014
We fall down
It is the 10th of April. And the significance of that, you ask?
Besides it being the 100th day of the year, Nestorius became Patriarch of Constantinople in 428, 1710 saw the Statute of Anne (the first copyright law in the UK), Mt Tambora volcano in Indonesia began a 2 month eruption cycle in 1815 that killed 71,000 people, Titanic leaves her port in Southampton in 1912, The Great Gatsby is published in 1925, the Wahine sinks in Wellington Harbour in 1968, the Good Friday peace deal is reached in Northern Ireland in 1998, and it is the feast of William of Ockham. And it's 3 days since I last posted on my blog.
Tragedy, you might say. What's the problem? Way back in March, you may remember that I said I would be trying to blog every day of Lent as part of my Lenten discipline. And here I am, missing three days in a row. I could say that I've been away on another work trip, and have also had a stinking head cold for most of this week as well, and all that would be true. I could also say that the number of spoons I've worked with this week was reduced due to head cold, change of daylight saving, and trip, and that would be true too. I could also say that the internet was a bit iffy when I was away.
But in reality, I haven't blogged because I didn't make time to blog, even to write the text and upload it when I had a secure connection when I got back. I got slack.
There's a very funny, slightly dodgy song (Tubthumping) that occasionally comes on the radio that I quite like. The chorus goes, "I get knocked down, I get up again, you're never going to keep me down," and some days it's just a bit like that. We get knocked down, so we get up again. I fall over with Lenten discipline, I get up and have another crack. What Eugene Peterson described beautifully in the title of one of his books as A Long Obedience in the Same Direction - we keep at it, even if we mess it up a bit some days. Thank goodness for grace that gives the courage to get up and have another go.
Besides it being the 100th day of the year, Nestorius became Patriarch of Constantinople in 428, 1710 saw the Statute of Anne (the first copyright law in the UK), Mt Tambora volcano in Indonesia began a 2 month eruption cycle in 1815 that killed 71,000 people, Titanic leaves her port in Southampton in 1912, The Great Gatsby is published in 1925, the Wahine sinks in Wellington Harbour in 1968, the Good Friday peace deal is reached in Northern Ireland in 1998, and it is the feast of William of Ockham. And it's 3 days since I last posted on my blog.
Tragedy, you might say. What's the problem? Way back in March, you may remember that I said I would be trying to blog every day of Lent as part of my Lenten discipline. And here I am, missing three days in a row. I could say that I've been away on another work trip, and have also had a stinking head cold for most of this week as well, and all that would be true. I could also say that the number of spoons I've worked with this week was reduced due to head cold, change of daylight saving, and trip, and that would be true too. I could also say that the internet was a bit iffy when I was away.
But in reality, I haven't blogged because I didn't make time to blog, even to write the text and upload it when I had a secure connection when I got back. I got slack.
There's a very funny, slightly dodgy song (Tubthumping) that occasionally comes on the radio that I quite like. The chorus goes, "I get knocked down, I get up again, you're never going to keep me down," and some days it's just a bit like that. We get knocked down, so we get up again. I fall over with Lenten discipline, I get up and have another crack. What Eugene Peterson described beautifully in the title of one of his books as A Long Obedience in the Same Direction - we keep at it, even if we mess it up a bit some days. Thank goodness for grace that gives the courage to get up and have another go.
3 January 2014
More exploring
One of the good things about recently having moved to the Bay of Plenty is that there is plenty of unexplored country around us. Today, we decided that it was time to explore north and west of us and go to the lovely Tarawera Falls.
Getting there was rather interesting: we had to drive past Lakes Rotoiti and Rotoma to Kawerau, collect a Permit, and drive through a privately-owned pine plantation along unsealed logging truck roads for about half an hour to the entrance to the Falls walkway. The views along the logging road were spectacular. The road was better than we had been led to believe, although it was quite dry - I suspect it would be a great deal more "interesting" had it been wet - and the map we were given with the Permit to enter the pine plantation was extremely good, which helped!
We also enjoyed seeing Mt Edgecumbe (Pukauaki) along the way to Kawerau; I was rather hoping to see some of the earthquake fault zones from the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake but I don't think we were far enough towards the coast. I remember that quake very well: a number of friends and family had a rough time then, and the mountain apparently wiggled several centimetres closer to Kawerau!
The falls themselves are quite unusual. Lake Tarawera has an outlet river that suddenly disappears underground and emerges about 2-3km away from the side of a cliff, almost like a jet from a hose. It squirts out with immense pressure: a huge amount of water coming out of the cliff face in about 3-4 different places, forming a very fast-flowing, deep river of a beautiful bluey-green at the bottom of the cliff, which we walked alongside for most of the track to the falls. They were very lovely, and very loud! I've seen lots of different waterfalls in NZ: this one was one of the "steep" variety, cascading down the side of the cliff in three or four different channels - what made it really interesting was the water just gushing from the middle of the cliff face rather than coming from the top of the cliff.
After exploring around the falls we drove back along the logging road and headed down to the edge of Lake Tarawera - unfortunately it had started raining so we didn't get to see the Outlet, where the lake water disappears underground on its way to the falls.
We finished the day with fish'n'chips in Kawerau - very nice!
It was lovely to get out of town and into the bush: the silence of the bush is like a blanket that enfolds you, and the noise of the falling water washed all thought away. Golden silence. I've been thinking a lot about that recently and have decided that lots of my prayer is "circumstantial": wherever I happen to be, I find something lovely and that becomes part of my prayer. It's not words, it's being, and when I don't get enough "being" then my actual words become a bit more snarly....
Getting there was rather interesting: we had to drive past Lakes Rotoiti and Rotoma to Kawerau, collect a Permit, and drive through a privately-owned pine plantation along unsealed logging truck roads for about half an hour to the entrance to the Falls walkway. The views along the logging road were spectacular. The road was better than we had been led to believe, although it was quite dry - I suspect it would be a great deal more "interesting" had it been wet - and the map we were given with the Permit to enter the pine plantation was extremely good, which helped!
We also enjoyed seeing Mt Edgecumbe (Pukauaki) along the way to Kawerau; I was rather hoping to see some of the earthquake fault zones from the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake but I don't think we were far enough towards the coast. I remember that quake very well: a number of friends and family had a rough time then, and the mountain apparently wiggled several centimetres closer to Kawerau!
The falls themselves are quite unusual. Lake Tarawera has an outlet river that suddenly disappears underground and emerges about 2-3km away from the side of a cliff, almost like a jet from a hose. It squirts out with immense pressure: a huge amount of water coming out of the cliff face in about 3-4 different places, forming a very fast-flowing, deep river of a beautiful bluey-green at the bottom of the cliff, which we walked alongside for most of the track to the falls. They were very lovely, and very loud! I've seen lots of different waterfalls in NZ: this one was one of the "steep" variety, cascading down the side of the cliff in three or four different channels - what made it really interesting was the water just gushing from the middle of the cliff face rather than coming from the top of the cliff.
After exploring around the falls we drove back along the logging road and headed down to the edge of Lake Tarawera - unfortunately it had started raining so we didn't get to see the Outlet, where the lake water disappears underground on its way to the falls.
We finished the day with fish'n'chips in Kawerau - very nice!
It was lovely to get out of town and into the bush: the silence of the bush is like a blanket that enfolds you, and the noise of the falling water washed all thought away. Golden silence. I've been thinking a lot about that recently and have decided that lots of my prayer is "circumstantial": wherever I happen to be, I find something lovely and that becomes part of my prayer. It's not words, it's being, and when I don't get enough "being" then my actual words become a bit more snarly....
16 October 2013
And for the 24...
Hubby and I have been playing a lot of cribbage recently. This ancient 17th century card game is one of the few card games good for two people, and is incidentally full of lovely old sayings like "one for His Nob". I learnt the game when I was very small (along with a number of other goodies, like Five Hundred, Canasta, Samba, and Push Patience - I never learnt poker although hubby tried to teach me later), and I taught hubby not long after we married. We often play a hand or two in the evenings - it's good fun and it's just nice to do something together.
Tonight I had a pretty cracker night. In the first game, I got a 6 6 7 8 with 8 on the cut for 20, with another 10 in the crib on my first hand (I won that game - hubby never pegged back the 30 points), and in the second game it got better with 7 7 8 9 and another 8 on the cut for a gorgeous 24: 8 for 15s, 4 for pairs, and a double-double run for 12. And it was my crib again and there was another 8 in there. Surprisingly I lost that game on pegging in the last round - it was my crib so hubby showed first. He only needed 4 for the win and had 10 in his hand, which was a pain because I also had enough to peg home.
The one I have to keep reminding myself about is the flush rule: we never played the flush when I was a girl so sometimes I miss it when scoring the show. The flush is the same as in poker: four cards in the same suit in the hand during the show worth 4, or 5 cards (including the cut) in the same suit for 5 during the show. I missed a five card flush the other night that would have turned an ordinary hand of 7 (two 15s and a run of three) into 12.... and hubby gleefully called Muggins and took the points.
And I'm prepared to bet that a significant number of my readers will not understand a word of this entry. Oh well, poor you. Go look it up!
Tonight I had a pretty cracker night. In the first game, I got a 6 6 7 8 with 8 on the cut for 20, with another 10 in the crib on my first hand (I won that game - hubby never pegged back the 30 points), and in the second game it got better with 7 7 8 9 and another 8 on the cut for a gorgeous 24: 8 for 15s, 4 for pairs, and a double-double run for 12. And it was my crib again and there was another 8 in there. Surprisingly I lost that game on pegging in the last round - it was my crib so hubby showed first. He only needed 4 for the win and had 10 in his hand, which was a pain because I also had enough to peg home.
The one I have to keep reminding myself about is the flush rule: we never played the flush when I was a girl so sometimes I miss it when scoring the show. The flush is the same as in poker: four cards in the same suit in the hand during the show worth 4, or 5 cards (including the cut) in the same suit for 5 during the show. I missed a five card flush the other night that would have turned an ordinary hand of 7 (two 15s and a run of three) into 12.... and hubby gleefully called Muggins and took the points.
And I'm prepared to bet that a significant number of my readers will not understand a word of this entry. Oh well, poor you. Go look it up!
14 February 2013
Coincidence - or something else?
An odd coincidence this year puts Ash Wednesday on 13 February, followed immediately by the double feast day of Sts Cyril and Methodius and St Valentine on 14 February. I find this a little striking: Sts Cyril and Methodius were Greek brothers from Thessolonica (the same place that St Paul's two letters to the Thessalonians were directed to). They are known as "the apostles to the Slavs", taking the news about Jesus to Russia, which included creation of an alphabet in which to write Slavic. St Valentine, rather than being a sappy figure associated with an overdose of chocolates and roses, is a bit of a shadowy figure from the third century. Tradition has it that he was a bishop who was known for creating ways for Christian couples to get married - at a time when to do so meant certain death for him, them, and anyone who abetted them. Valentinus eventually was martyred.
I find it immensely interesting that a trick of the calendar and the phases of the moon has put these two days side by side this year. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the time when we remember that, "from dust you came and to dust you shall return" and commit again to turning from our faults and sins back to God, and the feast day of three very brave men who, each in their own way, carried the story of the love, kindness, and forgiveness of God to different people. Ash Wednesday is my chance to turn back to the God who is infinite love, infinitely patient, and infinitely caring, but to do so requires courage because I know that God loves me too much to leave me where I am. It is a choice to return, but to do so means that we turn away from what may be some quite comfortable habits and ways of thinking. Cyril and Methodius left their own land, their language, their families and friends, and went to a strange place, for the love of God and others; Valentinus risked his own life to help young persecuted Christians to marry against Roman law. Lent is a time of risk: risking trusting in the depths of God's love for me and casting my barque into the deep waters of his forgiveness and his kindness, and turning away from those comfortable bad habits of mind and body to something more true.
Of course, that isn't to say that I will manage it all the time. We fall down, we get up again, we trust in God's forgiveness, and go on falling and getting up again - knowing that God's love for us all is deeper than the ocean and as infinitely varied as the universe that we marvel at.
I find it immensely interesting that a trick of the calendar and the phases of the moon has put these two days side by side this year. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the time when we remember that, "from dust you came and to dust you shall return" and commit again to turning from our faults and sins back to God, and the feast day of three very brave men who, each in their own way, carried the story of the love, kindness, and forgiveness of God to different people. Ash Wednesday is my chance to turn back to the God who is infinite love, infinitely patient, and infinitely caring, but to do so requires courage because I know that God loves me too much to leave me where I am. It is a choice to return, but to do so means that we turn away from what may be some quite comfortable habits and ways of thinking. Cyril and Methodius left their own land, their language, their families and friends, and went to a strange place, for the love of God and others; Valentinus risked his own life to help young persecuted Christians to marry against Roman law. Lent is a time of risk: risking trusting in the depths of God's love for me and casting my barque into the deep waters of his forgiveness and his kindness, and turning away from those comfortable bad habits of mind and body to something more true.
Of course, that isn't to say that I will manage it all the time. We fall down, we get up again, we trust in God's forgiveness, and go on falling and getting up again - knowing that God's love for us all is deeper than the ocean and as infinitely varied as the universe that we marvel at.
27 January 2012
Briefly on the breviary
Thought it was time for a brief update on my earlier post about the arrival of the new Benedictine breviary (although why it is called a breviary when it's anything but brief at over 2260 pages I don't know - unless it's related to breve as in music. Mmm, might have to check that out...!).
Enough blather. I have been using the new breviary for a couple of weeks now and am starting to get the hang of its geography. It's much easier than it looks now I've actually had a go with it. I've got adventurous and fully observed several feasts (including the Conversion of St Paul on the 25th - this was almost a disaster because I got the date wrong, but I figured it out in the end!). I've also made it work in terms of my time: I'm anticipating Vigils. Just as major feasts have a first and second Vespers, I'm anticipating Vigils the night before (so Wednesday Vigils are done on Tuesday night and so on), followed immediately by Compline. This works well as I have more time in the evenings.
I am enjoying the readings for Vigils immensely: daily readings are contiguous parts of OT and NT books (currently Deuteronomy and I Corinthians), but on Sundays and feast days, the readings are a piece from a Church Father and a Gospel (and they have the correct readings for Years A, B, and C which means I get to hear the Gospel twice for the day). The readings from the Fathers are particularly interesting as my reading in this area was limited to what was required for theology and church history papers, usually segments from particularly argumentative people! We had Clement of Alexandria on Sunday, a piece I hadn't read before, and that was really lovely.
This has also meant that I've been able to use Lauds as my first morning prayer, and I've been doing Vespers in the early evening where it belongs instead of at night like I was doing with my old Morning and Evening Prayer book. I've managed to keep the Little Hours (Terce, Sext, and None) nearly at their right times by doing them at morning tea, lunch, and afternoon teatime. It hasn't worked every day, but it's worked most days. This means that for the first time in 11 years since I first started getting involved in things monastic, I've actually managed to keep the full Hours, all seven of them. It's worked for two weeks, so hopefully I can make it stick.
The interesting thing about this is that I'm finding the prayer slots very easily into my day, it doesn't take a lot of time, but it does help me focus again back on my work and why I do it. It's also feeding into my personal contemplative times as well. These are becoming richer too - the psalms feed the contemplation and vice versa. Balance is slowly being found....
Enough blather. I have been using the new breviary for a couple of weeks now and am starting to get the hang of its geography. It's much easier than it looks now I've actually had a go with it. I've got adventurous and fully observed several feasts (including the Conversion of St Paul on the 25th - this was almost a disaster because I got the date wrong, but I figured it out in the end!). I've also made it work in terms of my time: I'm anticipating Vigils. Just as major feasts have a first and second Vespers, I'm anticipating Vigils the night before (so Wednesday Vigils are done on Tuesday night and so on), followed immediately by Compline. This works well as I have more time in the evenings.
I am enjoying the readings for Vigils immensely: daily readings are contiguous parts of OT and NT books (currently Deuteronomy and I Corinthians), but on Sundays and feast days, the readings are a piece from a Church Father and a Gospel (and they have the correct readings for Years A, B, and C which means I get to hear the Gospel twice for the day). The readings from the Fathers are particularly interesting as my reading in this area was limited to what was required for theology and church history papers, usually segments from particularly argumentative people! We had Clement of Alexandria on Sunday, a piece I hadn't read before, and that was really lovely.
This has also meant that I've been able to use Lauds as my first morning prayer, and I've been doing Vespers in the early evening where it belongs instead of at night like I was doing with my old Morning and Evening Prayer book. I've managed to keep the Little Hours (Terce, Sext, and None) nearly at their right times by doing them at morning tea, lunch, and afternoon teatime. It hasn't worked every day, but it's worked most days. This means that for the first time in 11 years since I first started getting involved in things monastic, I've actually managed to keep the full Hours, all seven of them. It's worked for two weeks, so hopefully I can make it stick.
The interesting thing about this is that I'm finding the prayer slots very easily into my day, it doesn't take a lot of time, but it does help me focus again back on my work and why I do it. It's also feeding into my personal contemplative times as well. These are becoming richer too - the psalms feed the contemplation and vice versa. Balance is slowly being found....
4 January 2012
Around and about
Hey, I'm back. I've been enjoying the gorgeous summer sun and Christmas festivities, not so much on the computer recently...
We've been up to a few bits and pieces. The traditional catching up with whanau at Christmas - my lot on Christmas Day for a very mellow afternoon tea/very late lunch/very early dinner - anyway, it was food about mid-afternoon with various members of the family and it was good. Hubby and I had collaborated on our first version of big bro's world-famous Christmas pudding and made a couple of puds: a smaller one for Christmas Day (for six adults and a child) and a bigger one for Boxing Day when we were catching up with his family (8 adults and a child). And they were wonderfully good. And we've had requests - so that sorts Christmas presents next year....
It sort of worked quite well: we had our traditional seafood Christmas, and on Boxing Day it was the English version with turkey etc. Although they did insist on serving devil droppings (aka brussel sprouts) I was able to avoid those. The turkey was good though.
Christmas at church was slightly less successful this year: we had planned to go to the Cathedral - we even got there for the carol singing at 10.30pm on Christmas Eve - but by the time the service was due to start at 11pm, small daughter was about to completely melt down so we headed home. Oh well, we sang carols. Pity: I was looking forward to hearing the mass they were singing as it was a setting I didn't know (Charpentier: Messe de Minuit), but it was the right call.
New Year's Eve was a non-event for us - in fact, I can't remember the last time we went out on NYE, but I wasn't worried. We pottered around and played games together. We've also been teaching our small daughter Canasta, and her card-playing genes are showing pretty well - she's picking it up like a dog does fleas. Or some other slightly nicer simile!
We've also caught up with a lot of good friends and family after Christmas too. And managed to excavate some of the dark sneaky corners in the house that tend to accumulate stuff (I had a massive throwing day in the study yesterday. It felt very satisfying!).
In terms of fun holiday-type stuff, we've done a few bits. There's an exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum at Te Papa at present called Unveiled - of wedding dresses, suprise surprise. We went last week when we had a grotty rainy day. I really enjoyed it, especially looking at some of the older dresses, with the intricate embroidery and incredible lacework. Some of the more modern stuff left me pretty cold, but there was enough wow there for me to be happy. Daughter enjoyed looking at the dresses, and we were looking at what inspired some of the more modern dresses (particularly the celebrity dresses). I was disappointed though that there were no male wedding costumes, especially from the earlier periods when men wore tights and women were scared....
The day before we'd spent at Dowse, one of our favourite rainy-day haunts. Again, this one was a dress exhibition, but of ballet costumes from the Royal NZ Ballet productions of the last few years. Really amazing to get that close to the dresses and see the details of how they're made to be both worn and danced in (we could get closer to this than the V&A exhibition, which was all in glass cases).
And today we went to the zoo. Lots of critters to see, and some great work being done to revamp everything. Lots of zoo babies to eye up too, including some very cute baby meerkats, baboons, and chimpanzees.
Oh, and we bought an exercycle, and we've been beating it up daily. And it's good!
We've been up to a few bits and pieces. The traditional catching up with whanau at Christmas - my lot on Christmas Day for a very mellow afternoon tea/very late lunch/very early dinner - anyway, it was food about mid-afternoon with various members of the family and it was good. Hubby and I had collaborated on our first version of big bro's world-famous Christmas pudding and made a couple of puds: a smaller one for Christmas Day (for six adults and a child) and a bigger one for Boxing Day when we were catching up with his family (8 adults and a child). And they were wonderfully good. And we've had requests - so that sorts Christmas presents next year....
It sort of worked quite well: we had our traditional seafood Christmas, and on Boxing Day it was the English version with turkey etc. Although they did insist on serving devil droppings (aka brussel sprouts) I was able to avoid those. The turkey was good though.
Christmas at church was slightly less successful this year: we had planned to go to the Cathedral - we even got there for the carol singing at 10.30pm on Christmas Eve - but by the time the service was due to start at 11pm, small daughter was about to completely melt down so we headed home. Oh well, we sang carols. Pity: I was looking forward to hearing the mass they were singing as it was a setting I didn't know (Charpentier: Messe de Minuit), but it was the right call.
New Year's Eve was a non-event for us - in fact, I can't remember the last time we went out on NYE, but I wasn't worried. We pottered around and played games together. We've also been teaching our small daughter Canasta, and her card-playing genes are showing pretty well - she's picking it up like a dog does fleas. Or some other slightly nicer simile!
We've also caught up with a lot of good friends and family after Christmas too. And managed to excavate some of the dark sneaky corners in the house that tend to accumulate stuff (I had a massive throwing day in the study yesterday. It felt very satisfying!).
In terms of fun holiday-type stuff, we've done a few bits. There's an exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum at Te Papa at present called Unveiled - of wedding dresses, suprise surprise. We went last week when we had a grotty rainy day. I really enjoyed it, especially looking at some of the older dresses, with the intricate embroidery and incredible lacework. Some of the more modern stuff left me pretty cold, but there was enough wow there for me to be happy. Daughter enjoyed looking at the dresses, and we were looking at what inspired some of the more modern dresses (particularly the celebrity dresses). I was disappointed though that there were no male wedding costumes, especially from the earlier periods when men wore tights and women were scared....
The day before we'd spent at Dowse, one of our favourite rainy-day haunts. Again, this one was a dress exhibition, but of ballet costumes from the Royal NZ Ballet productions of the last few years. Really amazing to get that close to the dresses and see the details of how they're made to be both worn and danced in (we could get closer to this than the V&A exhibition, which was all in glass cases).
And today we went to the zoo. Lots of critters to see, and some great work being done to revamp everything. Lots of zoo babies to eye up too, including some very cute baby meerkats, baboons, and chimpanzees.
Oh, and we bought an exercycle, and we've been beating it up daily. And it's good!
30 November 2011
Here we are again
It's Advent again. The days are getting longer. Summer officially starts tomorrow! It's getting noticeably warmer - I've appeared in my favourite 3/4 pants a few times, and sandals are definitely making a comeback. Nights are still cool - there was a serious dew this morning - but the numbers of covers on the bed are reducing gradually.
The colours have changed at church, and now it's purple everywhere. The liturgy has changed too - finally Ordinary Time is over (all 34 weeks of it, most of it after Pentecost!) and we're into the season of being aware. For me, Advent is a "deepening" season: the colours at church deepen from green to purple, the sky deepens from the light blue of spring to the deeper blue of summer, the leaves are beginning to darken up a bit, shadows are darker, light is brighter. Deeper inside too: making space for the one who is to come, at Christmas and to us. There's such a feeling of refreshment when Advent begins: after all those weeks of Ordinary Time it's back to the beginning of the year and the start of everything, and all the prayers change again. It's almost as though one is dowsed in cold water after sitting in the sun for hours - a shock, but a refreshing, welcome one. All things are new!
As is our custom, the Christmas tree went up on Advent Sunday, the Advent wreath came out, and the journeyings of our Nativity figurines began. I've spoken about this before, and we always find it a very special, fun way of thinking about our own journey through Advent. It's also fun finding the "special" decorations: each year we each choose a special decoration from Kircaldie & Stains, and finding them in the box is always fun as we return through Christmasses past. Unfortunately this year, we found one of my "specials" (a gorgeous teal-green bauble with a leaf pattern all over it) had smashed in the Christmas storage box, despite careful packing last year. However, it's the first decoration that has broken in 10 years so we're not doing too badly, and all the really precious (and smashable!) stuff like the Nativity set was fine.
The colours have changed at church, and now it's purple everywhere. The liturgy has changed too - finally Ordinary Time is over (all 34 weeks of it, most of it after Pentecost!) and we're into the season of being aware. For me, Advent is a "deepening" season: the colours at church deepen from green to purple, the sky deepens from the light blue of spring to the deeper blue of summer, the leaves are beginning to darken up a bit, shadows are darker, light is brighter. Deeper inside too: making space for the one who is to come, at Christmas and to us. There's such a feeling of refreshment when Advent begins: after all those weeks of Ordinary Time it's back to the beginning of the year and the start of everything, and all the prayers change again. It's almost as though one is dowsed in cold water after sitting in the sun for hours - a shock, but a refreshing, welcome one. All things are new!
As is our custom, the Christmas tree went up on Advent Sunday, the Advent wreath came out, and the journeyings of our Nativity figurines began. I've spoken about this before, and we always find it a very special, fun way of thinking about our own journey through Advent. It's also fun finding the "special" decorations: each year we each choose a special decoration from Kircaldie & Stains, and finding them in the box is always fun as we return through Christmasses past. Unfortunately this year, we found one of my "specials" (a gorgeous teal-green bauble with a leaf pattern all over it) had smashed in the Christmas storage box, despite careful packing last year. However, it's the first decoration that has broken in 10 years so we're not doing too badly, and all the really precious (and smashable!) stuff like the Nativity set was fine.
20 August 2011
What a week
I don't usually spend so much time blogging about the weather but it's been so unusual this week that I think it was warranted! This last week:
Sunday: sunshine, then cold, then sleet, then bits of snow
Monday: colder, sleet, hail, and snow
Tuesday: masses of snow! We had about 10-12cm at our place
Wednesday: ice, then sleety rain
Thursday: rain, lots and lots of really cold rain
Friday: more rain, but slowly breaking up
Saturday: sunshine! and drying washing!
It has been unbelieveable. The polar blast this week covered the entire country in snow, from the deep south up to north of Whangarei - they even had snow on the ground in Dargaville! This satellite photo of NZ taken on Tuesday tells the tale:
Pretty amazing. Standing there on Tuesday afternoon in my garden with my little daughter watching the snow falling fast and hard is something I will never forget. I had gone home slightly early - hubby had called and said if I didn't leave then I wouldn't get home, and he was right! - and snow was settling when I got to the Dowse Drive interchange, which is only a few metres above sea level. Avalon Park looked like it was covered in icing sugar, and by the time I got home, there was nothing to be seen but snow. It was amazing. We built another snowman, right in our own front yard, and had another snowball fight! The trees were so pretty, covered and outlined in snow, and the only sound you could hear was the laughter of children (and adults!) outside. I never understood until then how quiet snow is when it's falling. Everything gets this huge hush, like you're the only person breathing on the planet.
The cat, however, was completely unimpressed - he was giving me evil looks for days once the snow started to come, because he's never seen it either and didn't know what it was. It bothered him, especially when he went outside to do his business, and couldn't find anywhere to dig his hole! He soon discovered that under the bushes was free of snow, but that had its own challenges: he was less than impressed when he pushed under the bushes and got snow dumped all over him! The only time he was completely at ease with the whole business was when we went to bed and he could snuggle up on our bed and keep warm. Apparently it isn't only a housecat problem either: there was a great photo in the paper earlier in the week of the lions at Wellington Zoo, and the look of disgust on the lioness's face was exactly the same as my furballs's, only bigger and more grumpy (if that's possible).
They're calling it a once in 100-year snowstorm...
Sunday: sunshine, then cold, then sleet, then bits of snow
Monday: colder, sleet, hail, and snow
Tuesday: masses of snow! We had about 10-12cm at our place
Wednesday: ice, then sleety rain
Thursday: rain, lots and lots of really cold rain
Friday: more rain, but slowly breaking up
Saturday: sunshine! and drying washing!
It has been unbelieveable. The polar blast this week covered the entire country in snow, from the deep south up to north of Whangarei - they even had snow on the ground in Dargaville! This satellite photo of NZ taken on Tuesday tells the tale:
 |
| NZ covered in snow: satellite photo from Landcare Reseach via stuff.co.nz |
The cat, however, was completely unimpressed - he was giving me evil looks for days once the snow started to come, because he's never seen it either and didn't know what it was. It bothered him, especially when he went outside to do his business, and couldn't find anywhere to dig his hole! He soon discovered that under the bushes was free of snow, but that had its own challenges: he was less than impressed when he pushed under the bushes and got snow dumped all over him! The only time he was completely at ease with the whole business was when we went to bed and he could snuggle up on our bed and keep warm. Apparently it isn't only a housecat problem either: there was a great photo in the paper earlier in the week of the lions at Wellington Zoo, and the look of disgust on the lioness's face was exactly the same as my furballs's, only bigger and more grumpy (if that's possible).
They're calling it a once in 100-year snowstorm...
18 June 2011
The Tattooed Rock
Regular readers of my blog may remember my hugely excited reporting of the re-discovery of the Pink Terrace back in February. Well, there is more exciting news on that front. Te Tarata, the Tattooed Rock (the White Terrace) may have also been found! This sonar image was released a few days ago from GNS Science:
They actually took this image back in the same exploratory mission in summer that found the Pink Terrace, but apparently it needed some further analysis before they realised what they had. The lead scientist, Cornel de Ronde, is quoted as saying, "The two places on the lake floor [of Lake Rotomahana] where we encountered hard, up-standing crescent-shaped features correspond to the locations of the Pink and White Terraces before the Tarawera eruption [of 1886]. The rounded terrace edges are standing up from the lake floor by about a metre in some places. The sonar images of both sets of terraces are strikingly similar."
This contemporary photograph of the White Terrace, also in black and white, pretty much convinces me that they've got the right beast:
So exciting, and so wonderful to know what actually happened to the Terraces. They weren't found the day after the eruption (10 June 1886) - my guess is that they were covered with ash, which we know was at least 2m deep at Te Wairoa (now known as the Buried Village) and may have been deeper on the mountain side of Lake Rotomahana; and then the lake returned and ended up covering a much larger area than the three pre-eruption lakes it replaced, drowning the Terraces.
My only regret is that I'll never see them....
 |
| Te Tarata, the Tattooed Rock: sonar image from GNS Science |
This contemporary photograph of the White Terrace, also in black and white, pretty much convinces me that they've got the right beast:
 |
| Te Tarata, the White Terrace - contemporary photograph (just prior to 1886 eruption) |
My only regret is that I'll never see them....
13 June 2011
Strangely heavy...
I am a happy camper. I might be breaking my back carrying it, but I'm happy. My copy of Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: the first three thousand years turned up on Friday and I'm loving it. It's not been without it's problems though: the copy arrived from Amazon.com damaged, but Amazon has been amazing and is replacing it free of charge and in the meantime, I get to snuggle down with the damaged copy!
It's a beautiful book. Funny, very interesting, beautifully written, and capturing both the "big story", the metanarrative, and the smaller, more personal stories. He also has a lovely, light, almost wry sense of humour which is very modern and makes it definitely not dry in any way. It's more like reading a novel and it is in no way like reading a textbook - but it is richly erudite. It's got enough referencing to keep the scholars happy but he's hidden it away in the endnotes so you don't have to look at them if you don't want to, and he's stacked it with a lovely selection of colour plates and maps. These are necessarily small, with nothing like the grandeur of the cinematography in his BBC series, but enough to support his points. But if you want to see what he saw, watch the TV programme!
Very inspiring!
Completely recommended!
It's a beautiful book. Funny, very interesting, beautifully written, and capturing both the "big story", the metanarrative, and the smaller, more personal stories. He also has a lovely, light, almost wry sense of humour which is very modern and makes it definitely not dry in any way. It's more like reading a novel and it is in no way like reading a textbook - but it is richly erudite. It's got enough referencing to keep the scholars happy but he's hidden it away in the endnotes so you don't have to look at them if you don't want to, and he's stacked it with a lovely selection of colour plates and maps. These are necessarily small, with nothing like the grandeur of the cinematography in his BBC series, but enough to support his points. But if you want to see what he saw, watch the TV programme!
Very inspiring!
Completely recommended!
9 June 2011
Strangely warmed
I am feeling curiously heartened tonight. I have spent a very quiet evening in Palmerston North watching the final episode of Diarmaid MacCulloch's wonderful A History of Christianity, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. In the final episode, 'God in the Dock' (named for CS Lewis' book of that name), he looks at Christianity post-Enlightenment: the effect of the advent of "natural philosophy" (science) and doubt on the church in the West (curiously, he does not look at the effects of this period on the Orthodox church - maybe because the effect of the Enlightenment was not so strong there?).
In some ways, it's a very grim chronicle: wars and rumours of wars, loss of faith, doubt, fear, pride, revolutions, collusion with power; French Revolution, Catholicism in bed with Mussolini and Franco, the Holocaust and national socialism, doubt. Where is the God of love and compassion, the God of hope, the God who made humans in God's own image and likeness to care for each other and the world God has made?
A wise old pastor once said to me that "Doubt is not the opposite of faith; unbelief is the opposite of faith". Professor MacCulloch finished his series wondering if Christianity was dead in the West. But he visited St Martin-in-the-Fields, which besides being famous for its stupendous church music, has also been a church that has consistently explored what it means to be the face of a loving God in a changing world - ranging from pacisfism through to protest against apartheid, through to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. As the vicar of St Martin's said, "Yes, we're firmly part of the British Establishment [it's an Anglican/Church of England parish], but we constantly find gentle ways to undermine that establishment' in the name of a God of love and justice.
Some may believe that the Church, the institution, is dead or dying, and maybe in some places it is (not where I worship though!). But God, and faith in a God who is love and who inspires us to live lives of love and kindness, compassion, humility and gentleness and justice, who was born in a stable and lived part of his life on the streets with 'nowhere to lay his head', who called the religious establishment hypocritical whitewashed tombs full of decay, that God, and that faith, will not ever die.
So, my heart is strangely warmed. I must just seek to live in that love, that justice, kindness and compassion, to be open to being challenged and changed by it, to hear the call of Jesus the Jew, the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. Easier said than done, perhaps, but Professor MacCulloch has reminded me that Jesus asks that of all of us.
In some ways, it's a very grim chronicle: wars and rumours of wars, loss of faith, doubt, fear, pride, revolutions, collusion with power; French Revolution, Catholicism in bed with Mussolini and Franco, the Holocaust and national socialism, doubt. Where is the God of love and compassion, the God of hope, the God who made humans in God's own image and likeness to care for each other and the world God has made?
A wise old pastor once said to me that "Doubt is not the opposite of faith; unbelief is the opposite of faith". Professor MacCulloch finished his series wondering if Christianity was dead in the West. But he visited St Martin-in-the-Fields, which besides being famous for its stupendous church music, has also been a church that has consistently explored what it means to be the face of a loving God in a changing world - ranging from pacisfism through to protest against apartheid, through to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. As the vicar of St Martin's said, "Yes, we're firmly part of the British Establishment [it's an Anglican/Church of England parish], but we constantly find gentle ways to undermine that establishment' in the name of a God of love and justice.
Some may believe that the Church, the institution, is dead or dying, and maybe in some places it is (not where I worship though!). But God, and faith in a God who is love and who inspires us to live lives of love and kindness, compassion, humility and gentleness and justice, who was born in a stable and lived part of his life on the streets with 'nowhere to lay his head', who called the religious establishment hypocritical whitewashed tombs full of decay, that God, and that faith, will not ever die.
So, my heart is strangely warmed. I must just seek to live in that love, that justice, kindness and compassion, to be open to being challenged and changed by it, to hear the call of Jesus the Jew, the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. Easier said than done, perhaps, but Professor MacCulloch has reminded me that Jesus asks that of all of us.
21 May 2011
Quote of the day
"Bellringers, an absolutely sterling and splendid group of folk, but with a tendency to think of churches as rather puzzling additions to church towers." - Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch
20 May 2011
A History of Christianity
There's been a bit of a blog silence from moi for the last couple of weeks. No particular reason: just nothing significant to write about! After Graduation last week, I plunged into a huge amount of training and work - I think it's been two days in the office in the last fortnight. I've also been training a new colleague, who's been following me around watching me deliver training and getting a feeling for our style of delivery, which I found mildly intimidating at first! However, it's been quite good so far and he's going to co-deliver with me next week, so that could be interesting (I've never co-delivered training so am not sure how it works!).
However, the prompt for blogging has come from my brother. He has sent me the absolutely fabulous A History of Christianity BBC series by Diarmaid MacCulloch, the Professor of History of the Church at St Cross College, Oxford. This sumptuous series is beautifully filmed on location in some of the most important sites throughout Christian history, including China, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Rome, Spain, Mexico, all over Europe ... in fact, I am completely and totally green with envy over where he went to! It is engagingly presented by Prof MacCulloch, who is one of the world's foremost experts on the history of Christianity, and he definitely knows how to tell a good story and keep people interested. I spent years studying church history when I did my BMin but I've learnt things from his series that I never knew, including about the "Church of the East" centred in Baghdad and their mission to China and Japan in the 8th century!
The series is based on his magisterial A History of Christianity: the first three thousand years, which was a bestseller (and not just to church history nuts!) in 2009 on release - the Archbishop of Canterbury has called it the "definitive work" in the field - which is something coming from a scholar like Rowan Williams! A good story well told... to the point that I have just ordered the book from Amazon. Can't wait - but think it might not be one for lugging to work for lunchtime reading as it's over 1200 pages....
Some personal highlights from the first four episodes of the programme: the rediscovery of a Christian church in China dating from the 8th century (now being used as a Buddhist monastery); his extremely clear and lucid discussion of the causes of the Great Schism in 1054 between Orthodox and Roman churches; the Church of the East; nearly a whole episode devoted to Orthodoxy, looking at it in Eastern Europe, Russia, and other places. I am waiting to hear his treatment of monasticism - I've seen four of the six episodes (the other two are on their way, I'm told!) and so far he hasn't dealt with monasticism at all and you can hardly trace the history of Christianity without looking at the influence of monks!
This is fascinating, beautiful, interesting history. Even if you're not into God, church, or anything else "religious" it's worth watching because he investigates the links between Christian history and the political landscape beautifully, and the locations are just stunning. Thank God for the BBC, is all I can say right now!
However, the prompt for blogging has come from my brother. He has sent me the absolutely fabulous A History of Christianity BBC series by Diarmaid MacCulloch, the Professor of History of the Church at St Cross College, Oxford. This sumptuous series is beautifully filmed on location in some of the most important sites throughout Christian history, including China, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Rome, Spain, Mexico, all over Europe ... in fact, I am completely and totally green with envy over where he went to! It is engagingly presented by Prof MacCulloch, who is one of the world's foremost experts on the history of Christianity, and he definitely knows how to tell a good story and keep people interested. I spent years studying church history when I did my BMin but I've learnt things from his series that I never knew, including about the "Church of the East" centred in Baghdad and their mission to China and Japan in the 8th century!
The series is based on his magisterial A History of Christianity: the first three thousand years, which was a bestseller (and not just to church history nuts!) in 2009 on release - the Archbishop of Canterbury has called it the "definitive work" in the field - which is something coming from a scholar like Rowan Williams! A good story well told... to the point that I have just ordered the book from Amazon. Can't wait - but think it might not be one for lugging to work for lunchtime reading as it's over 1200 pages....
Some personal highlights from the first four episodes of the programme: the rediscovery of a Christian church in China dating from the 8th century (now being used as a Buddhist monastery); his extremely clear and lucid discussion of the causes of the Great Schism in 1054 between Orthodox and Roman churches; the Church of the East; nearly a whole episode devoted to Orthodoxy, looking at it in Eastern Europe, Russia, and other places. I am waiting to hear his treatment of monasticism - I've seen four of the six episodes (the other two are on their way, I'm told!) and so far he hasn't dealt with monasticism at all and you can hardly trace the history of Christianity without looking at the influence of monks!
This is fascinating, beautiful, interesting history. Even if you're not into God, church, or anything else "religious" it's worth watching because he investigates the links between Christian history and the political landscape beautifully, and the locations are just stunning. Thank God for the BBC, is all I can say right now!
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