early perceptions

wonderfulexchange6 Comments

As I drove across the hills today, I was pondering how our sense of God begins to take form.  Not the conversion experience per se, but the fore-runners that only become significant in retrospect.

When I tried to remember ‘first impressions’ two things came to mind:

First, sitting on the (slightly prickly, horse-hair filled) blue velvet couch with Dad reading a children’s bible and saying ‘I don’t know if it’s true, but if it’s not, it should be.’ — Still, I think, a hugely powerful statement, though he doesn’t remember making it.

Second, my sixth form British Studies teacher sneaking John 1 into preparations for a Mediaeval Christmas celebration.   I can’t remember now if she explained it, or if it was just the way she read it, but for the first time I made the now-taken-for-granted link between the Word and Jesus.

I suppose if you’d asked me the right question, I’d have been able to say that 1 John was about Jesus before that, but in that moment, the vast implications began to emerge.

So, what are your stories?  … first thing you were told about God that ‘stuck’? … first perception of God as present, real, relevant or desirable?

p.s.– I think I’ve told you that 1 John story before.  Perhaps too often.  So I suppose that offers a third question:  what story of faith do you keep returning to and why?

worlds apart

wonderfulexchange3 Comments

Those of you who read Blethers will know that we have had the Russian Choir in Dunoon this week.   It was a lovely group this year: younger, quieter and more timid (and therefore much easier to cope with) than the more exuberant group that I encountered two years ago.   The first group to arrive at the rectory this morning were the twenty-somethings.  They caught a glimpse of Molly fleeing up the stairs and next thing you know, they were all sharing  stories of their cats and showing me feline photos on their phones.

Then someone looked out the window, just in time to see the grey beast that prowls our waters raise its head and pass by.

They stood, watching the nuclear submarine cut through the water, laughing and pointing in delight.

I stood, watching them watch with no ripple of awareness that I grew up in a world where it would have been inconceivable for an American to stand in a room with Russians and watch the icon of the cold war pass by without fear.

It is good that we can stand together now, talking about cats.  It’s not good that we have so quickly forgotten how deadly that grey beast really is.

covenant

wonderfulexchange7 Comments

No, not that one.

The Methodist one.

I’ve been pouring through piles of liturgy books and re-reading the Methodist covenant service.  The covenant service is a peculiarly Methodist thing.  I realise that it covers much of the same landscape as my version of the Maundy Thursday Vigil  — i.e., what happens in the silence as I pray through the year, the people in the room, the people on my faith journey, and then move into that other space, harder to explain.  But that is rather idiosyncratic.

It is what we are supposed to be doing each time we gather for communion, each time we renew our baptismal vows, each time we get up in the morning.   But you see, that’s the genious of Methodism.  I have a profusion of images and ideas.  They have a nice orderly service to remind you of who you are.

The congregation is asked to pray:

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,
wherever you may place me,
in all that I do
and in all that I may endure;
when there is work for me
and when there is none;
when I am troubled
and when I am at peace.
Your will be done
when I am valued
and when I am disregarded;
when I find fulfillment
and when it is lacking;
when I have all things,
and when I have nothing.
I willingly offer
all that I have and am
to serve you,
as and where you choose.

Glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
May it be so for ever.
Let this covenant now made on earth
be fulfilled in heaven.  Amen.

The Methodist Worship Book, Covenant Service

Absolutely terrifying, isn’t it?

I suspect the ones who avoid the service and say ‘no’ might be the most honest.
But the ones who keep trying to mean it stand a better chance of it one day becoming true.

folly

wonderfulexchange21 Comments

I have been getting weary of having to walk round the house, radio in hand, to find a stable reception point.  So, I thought I’d take the plunge and buy a digital radio.

It worked beautifully on the Western Ferry all the way to Dunoon.  Then it abruptly cut out and will not recieve a thing.  It seems digital radio only exists in Dunoon below the tide line.  How foolish of me to have thought otherwise.