Being Well When We're Ill

There are so many good things about Marva Dawn's book. Her writing is deeply theological and profoundly practical. As someone who has and does suffer with a whole host of ailments and disabiltiies, she displays genuine empathy but eschews sentimentalism. She writes good prose and chooses helpful qoutations, wheter from scripture or other writers. The closing prayers to each chapter are more than decoration.

It's a book for those who suffer and for those who stand with them.

Losing God

Losing God is a great read. Matt Rogers walks his readers through the doubts and depression that once filled his life with darkness with real understanding and compassion and godly wisdom.

the very best christmas song - ever

Well, here we are - no voting shenanigans like Strictly Come Dancing; this is purely one person's choice. And a choice one at that it is too. In my opinion, the best Christmas record ever is:

I wish it could be Christmas every day by Wizard.

First released back in '73, it has become a perennial favourite and I think I know why. It's the combination of a sentiment that every child immediately agrees with, a great tune and an over-the-top delivery by Mr Wood. Oh, and not forgetting the presence of a children's choir ("OK you lot - take it!").

Wizard had had quite a year - they had a fair enough start in late '72 with Ball Park Incident but what followed in '73 was pure pop genius: See My baby Jive and then Angel Fingers. We lapped them up and bopped to them merrily at the juniors party (I was in what they now call Year 6 when Roy Wood graced the charts with his brand of pop perfection.

Our teacher that year in (what became) Ysgol Cymerau was Mr Elfed Griffiths who later became Headmaster at the school. His wife - before their marriage - had been my teacher in infant school (in Year 2). I remember very clearly the time when my brother Robert was home on leave (he was posted to Hong Kong with the British Army) and was walking back from town along Penrhydlyniog with me and my sister Mary. We saw my teacher and I said hello. Robert asked who she was after we'd passed her and then feigned turning round to follow-her, mesmerised by her beauty. She was indeed a lovely lady.

Hearing the song in Tesco's a week or two ago brought all those memories flooding back, memories of happy days and of simple joy.

the second-best xmas song ever

For many years this would have come top of my list - maybe it's a sign of age.

My nomination for second-best xmas song ever is Happy Xmas (War is over) by John & Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band. Released back in '72, I first remember this song from Xmas '76 when I recorded it off the radio onto a Waltham cassette recorder, via a plug-in microphone (the Waltham was my xmas pressie that year)

Of course it's a supremely naive suggestion, that war could be over simply by unilateral choice and without genuine heart transformation, but it's still a laudable desire.

The song harks back to John & Yoko's famous bed-in in 1969 and the subsequent poster campaign that Christmas which ran the slogan War is Over (If you want it). The song picks up that slogan in its closing coda. By 1972 John & Yoko were living in New York and had entered their most stridently political phase; this song doesn't sit so easily with their other offering that year, the double album Some Time In New York City.

The NY provenance also accounts for the presence on the song of the Harlem Community Choir. The next (& final) time a choir would feature in their work would be the Yoko song Hard Times Are Over on Double Fantasy, the album that was in the charts when John died. They join Yoko for the chorus of the song. As that song opens, members of the choir can be heard calling out 'We thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you right now' just spontaneously after a recording session; John was in the studio for the recording and got the engineer to capture their praise and used it to open the song.

One of the great delights of this particular xmas release was the b-side, a Yoko song 'Listen the snow is falling'. Perhaps her sweetest and most pop offering to date when the song was released (passing over 'Remember Love' which was the b-side of the Plastic Ono Band's Give peace A Chance). It's a romantic, lyrical and deeply moving song, narrating the personal & cultural gulfs she and John had navigated in their relationship:

Listen the snow is falling all the time
Listen the snow is falling everywhere...
Between your bed and mine,
between your head and my mind...
Between Tokyo and Paris,
between London & Dallas,
between your love and mine;
Listen the snow is falling everywhere.

It also comes complete with its own snowstorm effects which you don't have to pay extra for, always a nice bonus.

So this is xmas....so there you have it. Next time: the all-time number one (in this tiny mind).

The third-best xmas song ever.....

OK, let's talk about Last Christmas by Wham!

No, let's not, let's get on with the job in hand. The third best xmas song ever is...

David Bowie & Bing Crosby singing The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on earth.

I must confess my liking of this ditty is now somewhat marred by the Children In Need offering by Terry Wogan & Aled Jones. But at least their efforts underline the great job that David & Bing did. Don't ask me why I like it but I do - it felt somewhat different when it was released. Maybe it was the strikingly-odd combination of Bowie & Bing - the jagged-edge meets the silky-smooth; the thin white duke meets the Troubador. It was pipped to the post of the Xmas 1982 no.1 spot by, of all people, Renee & Renatta's 'Save your love' (actually, it made no.3 so was pipped by another song too, possibly Phil Collins' version of You Can't Hurry Love).

The previous year, Bowie had had a no.1 with another collaboration (hitting no.1 just before Christmas) - the superb 'Under Pressure' with Queen. Those who predicted an assault on the 1983 Christmas no.1 slot by a Bowie/Cliff Richard pairing were proved sadly wrong.

Crosby had died back in '77 so this was a posthumous hit, presumably recorded separately. A few weeks after his death, Alistair Cooke recalled an interview Bing gave to Barbara Walters in which she asked him to sum himself up. In Cooke's words:

He allowed that he had an easy temperament, a way with a song, a fair vocabulary, on the whole a contented life. And she said, 'Are you telling us that's all there is - a nice, agreeable shell of a man?' Bing appeared not to be floored. After the slightest pause for deep reflection, he said, 'Sure, that's about it. I have no deep thoughts, no profound philosophy. That's right. I guess that's what I am.'

I scarcely think Bowie would say the same of himself.

The best Christmas songs...ever

(Not carols, I hasten to add...)

Thought I'd post my thoughts on the best 3 Christmas songs ever released. Well, in my lifetime anyway, which isn't very long in the grand scheme of things but it does at least have the merit of spanning most of the pop era.

So to begin...I thought I'd mention in this post some of the songs that are definitely NOT the best Christmas songs ever. Like (Simply having) A Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney. I love the guy (kindof) but he has released some dross in his time, mainly hidden on albums but, now & again, sneaking into the light of the singles charts. This song probably heads that list (yep, even worse than the Rupert song).

Honourable mention ought also to go to Shakin' Stevens - he's Welsh, which is a good start, and enjoyed some worthy success in the early 80s for his hard work but Merry Christmas Everyone must have happened during a slack moment or three.

This list could be endless. I won't mention the numerous Cliff Christmas efforts, mainly because, to be fair, they're ok. Honourable mention probably ought also to go to Johhny Matthis and Boney M (not a collaboration but for their two efforts) which, again, were OK.

Did someone shout out 'Slade!'? A stomping singalong for every party...but is it? Yes, we bopped to it at the school disco in 1972 but it seems to me it's been rather degraded since then, perhaps through overexposure. Some songs can take the exposure, others can't. I think this is one of the latter.

Anyway, enough of the dross. There are 3 songs I think ought always to top the list. I'll post about them in turn over the next 3 Wednesdays (10th, 17th, 24th) in reverse order.

So stay tuned, pop pickers!

absence; presence

after
a thousand days
of absence,
sight and sound,
with only
fading memorials
to presence the
past,
i'm still doing
all i can
to keep you
near, hold you
fast.


(for Dad; unread)

jane tyson clement: november rain

Now we must look about us. Near at hand
cloud like a fist has closed on all the hills
and by this meager daylight on our land
we see just this, and this, and not beyond.

The sodden trees emerge and stand revealed;
we must acknowledge each one as it is,
stripped and stark, its basic structure clear,
the last leaves fallen, summer’s season dead.

And day on day the soft mist softly falls
as the long rain drives across the field
and all the while what we had seen beyond
is lost and shut as if it never were.

And we look closely at each other now,
the bleak roots, black grass, and the muddy road,
the litter that we never cleared away,
the broken flowers from a summer’s day –

Oh, stark and clearly we must look within
to weigh at last our purity and sin.

Oh, lovely hills in sunlight far away,
Oh, curving valley where the river sings!
Remembering, we live this discipline,
and hope still beats about us with strong wings.


(posted in honour of the month & the prevailing metereological conditions)

billy graham & age

In a recent interview to mark his 90th birthday, Billy Graham was asked about the challenges he faces as an old man. He replied,

We don't say enough about the challenges we'll face as we grow older, and how we ought to deal with them. I'm not just thinking here of the physical challenges of old age, although sometimes I wonder if we don't gloss over these and pretend that the latest cosmetics or surgical techniques can turn back the clock indefinitely. They can't; if we live long enough, sooner or later the frailties of old age will catch up with us.

But the real question is how we'll face old age emotionally and spiritually—and that's what we often overlook. As I've looked at my own life, and the lives of others, I've come to realize that the time to prepare for old age isn't when it arrives. By then it may be too late. The time to prepare for old age emotionally and spiritually is before it hits us.

I'm hoping to finish a book about this, but in any case I think our churches could do more to help people prepare for those latter years. They can be some of the most fulfilling of our lives — but not if we don't prepare.

And asked whether he thought about his early days in Charlotte, he said he did and then concluded with these words, which show him to be an evangelist to the end:

But when I think of the future now, I think especially of heaven. Admittedly old age isn't easy; whoever said that old age isn't for sissies was right. But as a Christian I know that this life is not all, and eventually we all will stand before God. I'm thankful that some day soon the burdens of this life will be over for me, and I will go to be with God forever. I look forward to that day! This is my hope, and it can be the hope of every person who puts their faith and trust in Christ.

Amen.

marriage & mission

JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY AND CHRISTIANITY
Rosik, C. H. Pandzic, J. (2008). Marital satisfaction among Christian missionaries: A longitudinal analysis from candidacy to second furlough Vol. 27 (1), 3-15

A plethora of research has associated marriage with psychological well-being. Some research has also indicated that a healthy marriage is particularly important for missionaries because spouses may be each other's sole social support in the field. At the same time, missionary couples face added challenges of relocating to new cultures. Rosik and Pandzic sought to explore the marital satisfaction of missionary couples; they hypothesized that marital satisfaction would decrease when couple first entered the mission field due to culture shock, and then increase to its previous levels as the couples' adjusted.

In order to test this hypothesis, Rosik and Pandzic analyzed data from 28 missionary couples. All couples completed a psychological assessment during their initial candidacy period and at two furloughs, each four years apart. Each assessment included the Marital Satisfaction Inventory, The sample was predominantly Caucasian (92.7°%) and had been married an average of 7.6 years (SD = 4.84). They were working on mission fields around the world.

Consistent with their hypothesis, the results indicated that the couples experienced a significant decrease in their marital satisfaction in the four years between their candidacy and first furlough. Unlike the hypothesis, however, the couples did not show a return to their pre-field levels of marital satisfaction by their second furlough; in actuality, the couples showed no significant changes in marital satisfaction between the two furloughs. Rosik and Pandzic concluded, "time may not heal marital distress" (p.13). They also emphasized the importance of mission agencies being especially attentive to identifying and treating marital distress for couples who are new to the mission field.

(synopsis as published in Journal of Psychology & Theology, Fall 2008, Volume 36, Number 3, page 234.)

cover to cover

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Genesis 3:21

My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring them back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the way of error will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

James 5:19,20

knowing nothing

but Jesus Christ
and him crucified

is not simply about
the words i speak,
that they be of him,
for him, to him;

but also, for his sake,
knowing the pain,
the rejection, the
temptations,
the soul-bruising
of life in a fallen
and contrary world,
among broken people,
with heart rending
for lost souls
in need of hearing
and seeing

Jesus the Messiah.

who could assume
such a task
lightly?

Best of the best

Yup, here you go.

Theological lurv

Cribbed from CT.

advice that preachers can learn from?

An economist writes about writing.

not demands, but desires

The Holy Spirit uses a man with converting power when the people see in that man not demands of them but desires for them.

Raymond C Ortlund, from this series of addresses on preaching:

Power In Preaching: Decide
Power In Preaching: Desire
Power In Preaching: Delight

A preacher learns from Alistair Cooke

There are so many ways in which one might learn from the late Alistair Cooke but, whilst reading his piece of the recently-deceased (when the Letter was written) Duke Ellington, the following occured to me:

i. The authority with which he seemed to speak came, at least in part, from his personal knowledge on the people & places he was referring to. Commenting on the Duke's funeral service, he compares the sound of the huge congregation rising to its feet to "the several million bats whooshing out of the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico at the first blush of dawn". Within a few short paragraphs he is referring to obscure American towns such as Four Forks, Arkansas and New Iberia, Louisiana with easy recall. He had been there. He had heard the bats and tasted the obscurity. There is no substitute for personal knowledge. And it shows as a person speaks.

ii. His words were carefully chosen for the time in which he lived and the audience to which he was speaking. They would not all remain appropriate today. For example, in this letter he refers many times to Negroes; I'm sure that as his letters continued and as times changed he went on rather to refer to the same people as 'Blacks'.

iii. He was clearly fallible in his judgements and not without a degree of self-interest and self-promotion in what he said and how he said it. As sons of Adam do.

hands-on intimacy

New Testament scholar Robert Yarbrough was interviewed about his forthcoming commentary on 1-3 John (here). During the interview, he was asked how computer technology has contributed to our understanding of those letters. Here is his extremely wise response (emphasis mine):

One can also do word analyses and various grammatical and syntactical searches of the New Testament or related writings with a speed, ease, and comprehensiveness previously undreamt of. Ease of access to reference works eliminates tedious book hunting and page turning. A downside is that every decade we move farther into computer technology, the greater the danger becomes that younger scholars will lack the hands-on intimacy with the text that pen and paper demanded, and the ingrained, deeply intuitive grasp of the text that a trained memory can arrive at. Voluminous information easily accessible can not only obscure but actually stunt creative and historically responsible scholarship.

I'm not so young any more, nor a scholar, but I think those comments could be helpfully applied to pastors, too, whose calling is to be faithful servants of God's Word.

The dying of 'Richard'

Is this article sad? Or is it simply inevitable? You decide.

Someone I know

...has got herself a Blue Peter badge.

Well done, Iola!

Mary Oliver: Messenger (from 'Thirst')

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Mary Oliver: Thirst

For some time, the volume 'Thirst' by Mary Oliver has been on my Amazon wish list. I don't remember how I first read about these poems but whatever I read made me wish for them, in that Amazonian way. I searched online and found her poem 'A Visitor' and felt this was a poet I could happily spend time with.

Well, today, I bought the slim volume of poems (in Borders, not Amazon) and have been astonished at my good fortune: seldom, if ever, have I felt such immediate rapport with a poet and with poetry.

Drinking good coffee in the Borders' Starbucks, reading the first poem or two, was an absolute delight, a luxuriating moment.

Here are poems to savour slowly.

ambidextrous

She said
I was wrong;

I thought
I was right.

So I
left her

to choose
the way.

Time to choose

Can Sundays
be fun days
if they precede
Mondays?
I'd rather choose
Tuesday
as follow-on to
Sunday.
But what then
of Monday?

Wednesday
needs its
own space
and Thursday
its own grace
in the race
to Saturday.
It ought not
be replaced.

Try next to
Friday
but grieve not
that the weeks
seem simply
to fly by
these days.

A different take

on the Beatitudes from Scot McKnight:

The Beatitudes are normally misunderstood as a list of virtues. The Beatitudes are not, however, a virtue list: they are a list of the kinds of people in the society Jesus maps for his listeners. Those who are responding to his kingdom vision are the poor and the hungry, those who weep and those who are despised by the powerful - and those who are not responding are the rich, the well-fed, the party-prone and those who are approved by such powerful folks. No, this is not a virtue list but a sociopolitical statement:the work of God in Jesus and through the kingdom is to include the marginalized, to render judgement on the powerful, and to create around the marginalized (with Jesus at the centre) an alternative society where things are (finally, by God) put to rights. Here we come into a vision of the kingdom of God on the part of Jesus that is an extension of the Magnificat and the Benedictus and Jesus' inaugral address.

McKnight, A Community Called Atonement, p.12

Best teacher meme

I got tagged by Alan Davey to report my best 5 teachers. Here we go:

1. All-time tops would have to be Mr Curwen who taught us Latin in Ysgol Penrallt and Ysgol Glan-Y-Mor in Pwllheli. He achieved the impossible: gave (me, at least) a love of that dead language. He used to throw pieces of chalk about the room and shout at people a great deal but was deeply-liked and respected by us.

2. Staying with Glan-Y-Mor, I have an abiding affection for Mr Maldwyn Jones, our Maths teacher. He insisted we used ink pens and is therefore solely responsible for the way this leftie's handwriting style developed. I loved Maths and I loved the way he taught it.

3. Mr Trevor Kelk, English teacher at Hutton Grammar School, Preston. I had Trev for English 'O' and 'A' levels and he was a breath of fresh air (quite a feat for a man who smoked as much as he did). He encouraged us to explore the meaning and the power of the literature we studied and to experience it for ourselves. Thanks, Trev.

4. At ETCW we had a bunch of great lecturers - Iwan Rhys Jones, whose description of the furtive pathach will live in the memory forever; Dr Gibbard and his delight in all things Welsh; Dr Gledhill and his wearied distrust of cant (I have no idea what he thought of Kant, however); Tom Holland, who taught me to ask questions and rightly gave me my lowest essay mark at college; Trevor Burke, who exemplified humility and showed its attractivness and indispensibility. Naming one would be unfair, so please forgive me: from Peter Milsom, at ETCW and then together in ministry: the ways of grace.

5. Last, but certainly not least, Mrs Janice Montague who taught Law at Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic in the 1980s. She was stunningly beautiful and wore the most attractive spectacles; Tim Gray and I used to sit mesmerised through her lectures and seminars. She was the sole reason I chose to take the Law module in my final year.

a happy holiday

Unbroken blue skies for the whole week - what an amazing gift from God!

Spent time in and around Harlech, Porthmadoc, Beddgelert, Borth Y Gest, Portmeirion and Llanbedr (where my Dad worked during the 70's).

Here's our snaps....

the shame of sin

We read Graham Greene's The Power and The Glory for 'A' level English Literature. I just picked it up again today at the library, in readiness for a week's holiday. Skimming through it briefly, this passage caught my eye and made me glad for the opportunity to re-read this book about the compromised whiskey priest and the calloused lietenant. Greene's sense of the struggle that sin is was acute.

He lifted little pink eyes like those of a pig conscious of the slaughter-room. A high child's voice said, 'Jose.' He stared in a bewildered way around the patio. At a barred window opposite three children watched him with deep gravity. He turned his back and took a step or two towards his door, moving very slowly because of his bulk. 'Jose,' somebody squeaked again. 'Jose.' He looked back over his shoulder and caught the faces out in expressions of wild glee; his little pink eyes showed no anger - he had no right to be angry: he moved his mouth into a ragged, baffled, disintegrated smile, and as if that sign of weakness gave them all the licence they needed, they squealed back at him without disguise, 'Jose, Jose. Come to bed, Jose.' Their little shameless voices filled the patio, and he smiled humbly and sketched small gestures for silence, and there was no respect anywhere left for him in his home, in the town, in the whole abandoned star.