Mike's musings

Unexpected break

After a day filled with work calls, a children's party, a dog walk and a frankly disastrous attempt at potato waffles (not by me...), I was planning to attend a meeting in SecondLife, but it's cancelled (I guess), as the grid is down, and no logons are enabled.

A chance to read Ecclesiastes again, which I promised my spiritual director I'd do before our next meeting (which is next week). A chance to put my feet up which is all the more welcome for being unexpected. And I _do_ like Ecclesiastes.

Labels: bible, relaxation, work

LOLCat bible

Actually, I approve, I think: here.

Labels: bible, cats

Spiritual direction

Work continues busy, but I also had a session of spiritual direction. I've recently changed spiritual directors - not because we didn't get on, but due to problems with clashes of commitments - and I'm getting a lot from my new one, who's called Rosemary. We've agreed that I'll re-read Ecclesiastes, and also try to get hold of another book, which we were struggling to identify!

One of the things that came out of the meeting was a great deal of thought on my side about the extent to which I'm beginning to understand the prophetic nature of my ministry. More about this in the future, I think, but I do feel a call to stand up and be counted - as a liberal. Which is kind of rare.

Labels: bible, ministry, spirituality

Heroes

(backposting) It just keeps getting better, doesn't it? We couldn't face staying up till 2220 (!), so only watched the one episode tonight, recording the other: no spoilers, please. My mate Mark Brown has joined Facebook, so welcome along if you're reading this.

I grabbed a few minutes when I would otherwise have been having a cup of tea yesterday morning, and joined Jo, Miri and Mel (who's also just joined Facebook) at toddler group. It's lovely to see Jo running around, and I'm completely unfazed (sp?) by being the only bloke there. Seems that I get some looks, but I don't care. I noticed yesterday (as I have in similar situations before) that I immediately get lots of attention from other children. This can sometimes be quite disturbing, depending on how they relate to you, but on this occasion it all seemed happy and healthy enough.

Started using the Vulgate for some of my readings for evensong since coming back from the latest ERMC weekend. I'd forgotten how lovely it is, and it appears that I've not got too rusty.

Jo's started recognising "J for Jojo" all over the place, "squiggly snake S's", and the letter "O". She knows that when two "o's" are next to each other as friends, they tend to make an "ooooo" sound, and she goes around finding examples and telling us all about it.

Labels: bible, facebook, Jo, miri, television

Paul conflicted

Just had a really, really weird thought. As regular readers of this blog will know, I've read, enjoyed and been very challenged by some of Marcella Althaus-Reid's work. And, under the influences of the past week's work on postmodernity, I'm sure, I suddenly thought: "what if we try reading Paul as the voice of a woman forced to travel, preach and teach under a man's identity?". Hmmm. Makes the pseudo-Pauline stuff particularly interesting, I suspect.

Really need to think hard about this, but I feel that it's probably a worthwhile thought experiment, if only because it will force me to rethink my view of Paul and his (her...?) identity as revealed through the Epistles. Thoughts welcome.

Labels: bible, gender

Sunday, the day of rest

(backposting) Not if you're on an ERMC summer school, it's not! A Methodist communion - wow, all those little cups of non-wine! - at 0730 (ow!), then breakfast, then more discussion on films. After that, another Ian and Richard double-act, this time discussing post-Christendom. Have to admit that I had a bit of a dose through some of this, as the historical stuff wasn't new to me.

Free time in the afternoon - again, laughable, because there was more choir rehearsal. Much, much better, the Tye, and ready for performing at this evening's worship.

In the afternoon, a session on literature, which focused rather oddly on A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which I'm afraid I hadn't got round to reading (I wasn't alone). Lots of education on post-structuralist and deconstructionist theory, which should be a good underpinning for the rest of the week.

At one point, one of the students, who's firmly from a more evangelical tradition than me, said, "As a Christian theologian, we accept the authority of the Bible...", and I took it up with him later on. I absolutely can't make a blanket statement like that. I have to look at any such acceptance, _particularly_ of the Bible, critically, and when it comes down to it, I find that it's my faith that is the bedrock of my Christianity, shored up by the Bible, and not really the other way round. This isn't a new thing for me, and it's an issue that I grapple with, but it's one that I'm very happy that I _do_ grapple with. It's one of the concerns I used to have about how many scientists at university took to evangelical Christianity: when they're so used to probing and questioning in their own lines of work, how can they be so uncritical in just accepting the Bible (and a rather narrow set of interpretations thereof)? An _uncritical_ sola scriptura just doesn't hold it for me.

The Tye went well, despite a missed alto entry, which we salvaged quickly, and no-one was the wiser. I was very pleased, and lots of people said how much they'd enjoyed it: both choir and congregation.

Labels: bible, ERMC, music, worship

Shocking, shocking result

Thanks to Sally for this one. I wonder how Ted would do...?

Labels: bible