Fundamentals (not to be confused in any way shape or form with fundamentalism) and Summer Reading

Just to recap - cos it's good to reflect and restate what you're about sometimes - I talk a lot about this journey I'm on (all-be-it with a few detours along the route to discuss cats, moonwalks, Twilight, David Tennant and other less obviously related issues - although to my mind it's all part of the whole and it's not a linear journey anyway) after all this blog is about being Christian in the culture and time in which I find myself and it's about asking myself the question about what therefore "church" means in this context. It's about trying to work out how being a person of faith intersects with people around me who are not people of faith...

So why does it matter? Because I do believe that there is a God who loves and communicates with us all and that people are not necessarily thinking about God or asking the big questions of life and meaning; that there is a call to live differently to eschew consumerism, superficiality, celebrity obsession and to live justly and righteously; that how we live does have an impact on the world for good or evil; that the Kingdom of God is a reality that we need to live; that the Kingdom was and is and is to come; that God's invitation rather than narrowing our lives and making us petty and unthinking (we just accept everything 'by faith' right - which means we've never had an intellectual thought in our heads - we're actually just people who are still living in the dark ages before the enlightenment and science set us free from all this superstitious mumbo jumbo - OK maybe I'm taking Ian Bell, Ian McWhirter and Alan Taylor in the Herald too seriously - maybe I'm just being defensive) God's love and self communication invites all of us to something better, individuals, communities, nations, all of creation. God's love is transformative and that puts a responsibility on the Christian to live like it's true. Christianity was always a challenge to empire and power, it was always prophetic in the biggest sense, counter cultural and counter intuitive - (see the Sermon on the Mount if you need that confirmed).

The point of this blog is to challenge me, to make me accountable; it's thinking out loud and sharing the journey in case anyone happens across it and is maybe is in the same place, struggling with the same issues. It's not an intellectual journey (cos it's too easy to dismiss it as that) more a thinking journey but with some very clear issues of practice which for me are highlighted by conversations with people like Aaron and Matt and Stephen on the streets.

I'm going to have a look over the next few blogs at my summer reading so I'm getting the stuff about intellectualism out of the way first because it might look like that at first glance.

Here are the books - I'll be back.....

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Christian Ethics

So I have found myself pondering some deep spiritual questions while I've been on holiday and I guess the one which is exercising me most at the moment is - "what is the moral and ethical stance one needs to take as a Christian, when one is in receipt of (what my husband terms) "a free cat"". That is to say, a cat which has adopted you, which hangs out with you all day and evening, a cat which has miaowed conversations with you where you swear you can actually tell what it is saying, which you really like having around but - and this is where the "free" bit comes in - you don't have to feed or pay vets bills for and who actually belongs to someone else.

Cat - cos that is what we call him, not actually knowing his real name, is now a permanent fixture. He's there first thing when you wake up and come down stairs, he likes to sit on the couch beside you and snooze when you're reading, he follows you around, he sits on your lap when you watch telly. Even when he goes outside it's usually to sit on your window sill watching you or on the chairs in your back garden.

The slightly difficult times are when Cat is sitting on your lap or snuggled up next to you and the neighbours, who actually own Cat, walk passed your window. We don't know these neighbours at all - and maybe that's the thing which should be exercising me as a Christian - but what do you do - go to their door and explain that their cat is now hanging out in your house from first thing till - and this is particularly difficult - you pick him up from the couch and put his little furry self out of your back door at 10.30 p.m. into the dark and cold (well it is August in Scotland) in the hope that he'll head home. We still have the back door open a lot because it is still quite muggy so it's difficult to stop Cat coming in. And what if - this is the worst thing - the neighbours object to him coming in our house and ask us to stop - because it's too late now - we are all really attached to him.

Ah well - as always, suggestions and comments welcomed!

Weeping Woman

I've just been to the excellent exhibition 'The Discovery of Spain' at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. It has a lot of fabulous paintings as well as a few really dull ones, not a big fan of some sentimentalist paintings of children (apart from the Millais which is beautiful).

I discovered a few Scottish artists I wasn't really aware of and their pictures were amazing, from Roberts with his complex drawings of interiors of cathedrals and the external ornament of the Alhambra, to Phillip and his fantastic unfinished work of small Spanish boys playing at bull fighting - which was among my favourites. The Velazquez and El Greco - some of them familiar from the main gallery. Some really incredible water colours by Arthur Melville, another Scottish artist

But last of all in the final gallery a really powerful painting by Picasso called the Weeping Woman. Apparently he made a number of studies on this theme at the same time as he was painting Guernica and it is incredibly moving. I love icons and I think this is a painting that I could pray with. It's the anguish and pain of the woman for the loss and awful destruction during the Spanish Civil War and it's all the more powerful for the fact that the woman appears to be wearing her best suit and her hat with the flower in it. An ordinary woman caught up in tragic circumstances.

If you get a chance to see it you should go.

Mysteries of the Universe

How come I work hard, have a good salary and am going on holiday to Ardnamurchan and staying in a caravan, but my son is a student and has no money and he's just back from Mallorca, looking fabulously tanned and relaxed.

Hmm - something not quite right with this! Maybe I should start an online poll - Mallorca or Ardnamurchan - which one would you opt for?

Happy Birthday Mo!!

My maladjusted friend asks the question on her blog - what do you do on a significant birthday? My suggestion would be to take some time to do an "examen of consciousness". You can do this looking back on a period of time, usually at the end of each day, but maybe also a week or a month or a year or a decade! Maybe after a significant event like a holiday. It's based on a belief that God is constantly revealing himself to us through our life and human experience.

Take some time out by yourself (or you can do this as a small group or as a family), light a candle, take some time to become aware of God's loving presence and look back over the day , taking time to think what you were doing at specific times, and ask 2 small questions;

"For what moment today am I most grateful?"

"For what moment today am I least grateful?"

Or you could frame the questions slightly differently;

"When today did I have the greatest sense of belonging to myself, others, God?"

"When today did I have the least sense of belonging?"

It's way of reflecting back on our day (or decade) and noticing consciously how we felt at different times. By doing this we can discern the ways that God is moving in our lives, how God has been present to us. What brought life - consolation - it might be small things like a child laughing or a sunrise (or a helpful doughnut person!). The things that bring us life and draw us towards God. It helps us also to be aware of when we felt further from God - desolation - a phone call or a conversation which left us feeling bad about ourselves or our circumstances, feeling disconnected from God. We might normally pass these moments by and think they are insignificant, but when we take time to reflect we can begin to see patterns in our lives. We can then bring these reflections back to God and ask for clarity or further insight. God speaks to us through our deepest feelings and yearnings.

Keeping a journal can help us to note the things which are significant, reflecting on them over a longer period.

If you click on the link here there is an examen, "Review of the Day", that you can download onto your iPod.

Doing Nothing

I was at an event on Friday. We were asked to think what it would be like to do nothing for 15 minutes during the work day and then taken through a relaxation exercise. I'm pretty good at engaging with this stuff because I've had a bit of practise in both leading and participating in Ignatian meditation. The person up front challenged us to think about whether we took time out of our day to consciously relax and unwind.

When I got home the weather was fab, hot, sunny, blue skies so I took Karl Rahner into the back garden (and the cat of course!) and started to read. I've said before that you really cannot hurry Rahner, you have to read him slowly and meditatively and let him percolate, so I stopped for a bit and decided, thinking of what was said that morning, that I just needed to notice the moment. So I stopped, closed my eyes and listened. I'm very fortunate to live in the country and there are times around our house when there is virtual silence. I listened, and off in the distance was aware of the very faint hum of cars passing on a road far away; birds singing, some little song birds, some seagulls, the odd caw of a crow; the low mechanical rotor of a small plane and then the thrum of an engine of a bigger plane way up high in the skies; I heard the papery sound of the leaves rustling in the breeze, swishing and swaying; the small crack of wood expanding in the heat.

After a bit I opened my eyes and looked around, the garden looks lovely, lots of colour in the plants in the borders; the green lawn; the swallows swooping and flying high up in the blue; I watched a big white fluffy cloud evaporate over the course of a few minutes, it changed from a skull, to a dragon, to a phoenix, to a small cotton wool ball, to some wisps of white gossamer and then just disappeared; I saw the trees, the different shades of green, the different shaped leaves; the cat sleeping under my chair with it's tail sticking out; little insects, ants, small beetles and tiny spiders bustling back and forward.

Smelled the baked earth and the hot paving slabs; the smell of sunshine and outdoors; felt the breeze on my face; my feet touching the earth.

And I meditated on Rahner's words

"The doctrine of this grace and it's fulfillment, therefore, bids us keep ourselves radically open in faith, hope and love for the ineffable, unimaginable and nameless absolute future of God which is coming, and bids us never close ourselves before there is nothing more to close because nothing will be left outside of God, since we shall be wholly in God and he shall be wholly in us."

Doing nothing - I can highly recommend it.

Adopted by cat!

It's official - the cat next door has adopted us. We have been on nodding acquaintance with the cat for some time, but 2 weeks ago it takes to following us and then sitting on our windowsill, it miaows. The rain then becomes torrential and the cat remains on our windowsill, miaowing. We cave and let it in! Then it goes like this..

I am working from home - walk into the kitchen - cat is on windowsill, miaows and tries to get in the window. I walk through to the utility room, cat jumps off windowsill and sits at back door, miaows. I walk through to the study to work, cat sits at front door, miaows. I am working, cat starts to jump up at front door handle, miaows. I walk back through to kitchen, cat appears and sits on the windowsill, miaows - you get my drift...

I think, ah well should maybe just go into back garden and work out there before cat damages self jumping at door handle. Take all my gear outside. Cat comes and sits at my feet, miaows. House so hot that doors at the back are open. Cat decides to go into house, miaows.

I think the cat is lonely and comes and hangs out with us, miaowing, while it's owners - do cats have owners, or just people they use who feed them and give them some place to sleep? - are out. With the back door open these last few days because of the heat, cat now strolls into house, miaowing. Tried to confine it's ownership of house to kitchen but cat now feels free to wander at will, miaowing. Doesn't really like to get stroked prefers to just come and sit near you, miaowing.

Cat now appears to be in house each night I come home! usually it does eventually go home, but has now taken to sitting outside daughter's bedroom window at night, miaowing.

Did I mention that this is the miaowing-est cat I ever came across?