Still Quarrying: Riding The Bumps.

 After the Stem Cell Transplant in 2020 a doctor friend revealed that his greatest anxiety for me was that I would pick up an infection during the process.

  For a period of time, I would virtually have no immune system, all my childhood inoculations would be wiped out, and when I was eventually discharged it would be with a compromised immunity. This was just before we were beginning to feel the impact of Covid-19.  So, when it hit us I was classified as highly vulnerable and strongly advised not to stray beyond my doorstep.  

 

I don’t think I realised at the time how dangerous those months were for me.  Recent events have brought that home.  I’ve had coughs and sniffles over the last few years but at the beginning of November it reached a new level.  The persistent cough and breathlessness became so bad that eventually I contacted the Beatson cancer help line.  That led to an admission to the Assessment Unit where it was discovered that I had picked up a Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).  There was nothing much that could be done in the way of treatment except to go home, stay warm, and avoid contact with other people as far as possible. Obviously if things got worse, I would need to be admitted but for the time being yet again it was a case of ‘watch and wait’.  

 

It was disappointing.  I had hit another of those bumps that frequent this cancer life.  The physical discomfort is bad enough but then come the waves of frustration, irritation, and even anger.  And that is followed by the burden of not coping in a way that I think is appropriate for someone who seeks to have his life defined by an awareness of God the Father, the teaching and example of His Son Jesus, and the power of His Holy Spirit.  

 

How many hours have been spent meditating on the Scriptures?  How many insights have I gathered from fellow believers going through their worst of times? How many opportunities have there been to take the truths I have gathered and seek to encourage and help others through preaching and counsel?  Where now are those moments when an unmistakable Presence has supported me when the darkness was deepest?  

 

It sometimes feels as if all of this has been wiped out as I feel the judder of another ‘bump’.  But what if these times come to us to further demonstrate just how personal and powerful God can be in our lives.  Stripped to the bone spiritually where is our help, our strength, and our hope?  If I were dealing with someone like me in my days of regular pastoral work I would be encouraging her to focus on the constant testimony of believers in Scripture and in the history of the Church that no darkness has ever mastered the light of Christ, that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God, that God in Christ has overcome the suffering and death that threatens to destroy our quality of life.

 

Still in the grip of the RSV I heard a powerful message from a Welsh preacher on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday worship.  He was focused on John 11: 35.  Jesus’ response to the death of Lazarus and the effect this had on those who were closest to him: 

 

 ‘Jesus wept’. 

 

The Son of God felt the pain of corruption and death even as He knew that this was not the end for Lazarus.  Holding suffering and hope together is the ultimate challenge for many Christians at a personal level.  But the life, death and resurrection of Jesus shows us that despite the pain, the frustration, the despair we are given good reason to hope.  God was in Christ angered by disease, disturbed by death, but holding in his heart the ultimate purpose of the coming Kingdom where no darkness would fall.  The apostle John’s visions contained one showing the triumph of the Kingdom:

 

‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.

 Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain anymore,

 For the former things have passed away.’  (Revelation 21: 4.)

 

We will never cease to hit the ‘bumps’ and ask the question why?  We see this all through Scripture.  Listen to David, Job, Jeremiah.  So many others,  even the Son of God as He suffered.  But drawing near to these supreme witnesses we pray for grace not just to admire them or take comfort from them but to live their way in every circumstance.   

Still Quarrying: When The Bell Rings.

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a bit of time in the Beatson cafeteria.  It’s a good place to have coffee, read, and await my chauffeuse to bear me home in her motor car.  (I’m not driving at present.  Concentration a bit suspect.)   From time to time, you hear a bell ringing.   Installed for those who have completed their treatment it sends out a message:

 

Ring This Bell 

Three Times well.

My treatment’s done,

This course is run,

AND I AM ON MY WAY!

 

The cafeteria is usually crowded so the sound of the bell is greeted with applause, cheers and hugs.  And a wide smile, and sometimes tears, from the patient looking forward to better days.

 

I heard the bell a week past on Monday and it occurred to me, nor for the first time, that as things stand, I will never ring that bell.  There is no absolute cure for Multiple Myeloma although in in my case I have been assured that as long as I continue with the chemotherapy and other medication the disease can be considered to be under control.  

 

It sounds a bit morbid, but it is not unusual for people to have medical conditions that require them to be on life-long treatment.  My mother was diagnosed with angina in her mid-fifties which remained with her until her death at age 88.  As with many things what matters is how we respond to the challenges that fall to us, making adjustments to lifestyle and aspiring to be content. 

 

When the bell rings I’m reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Christians in Rome.   After a heavy theological discourse Paul shows us how it must all be put into practise.  In the midst of a scattergun list of practical application he writes:

 

‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’  (Romans 12: 15)

 

I suppose there was a time when I would have thought it more difficult to mourn with those who mourn.   But experience has taught me that it can be more difficult to rejoice with those who rejoice.  When someone is being blessed in a way that is eluding you  it can be very difficult to connect with their spirit of rejoicing.  But like so many things when it comes to a Biblical quality of life, we are persistently called to aspire to those things that are best for us and for those around us.  That needs help as Paul learned when he prayed continually for healing from pain and did not appear to be receiving an answer.  God’s word to him was:

 

‘My grace is made suffient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  (2 Corinthians 12: 8)

 

The bell may never ring but the Gospel rings our with promises that will never fade.  

 

Still Quarrying: Fresh, Green, Proclaiming.

 Here’s a thing.  What is the connection between Hercule Poirot and Psalm 92? 

 

Yesterday one of my morning psalms was Psalm 92, a song of praise to God for His love and faithfulness, His creative power and His sovereignty in a world where wickedness seems to have the upper hand.  The psalm ends with an assurance that those who are faithful to God will show signs of His rule in the here and now:

 

‘The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,

they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;

planted in the house of the Lord,

they will flourish in the courts of our God.

They will still bear fruit in old age,

they will stay fresh and green,

proclaiming ‘The Lord is upright,

He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in Him.’ (vv. 12-15) 

 

What caught my attention particularly was vv. 14-15:

 

‘They will still bear fruit in old age,

they will stay fresh and green,

proclaiming ‘The Lord is upright,

He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in Him.’

 

I had a birthday the other day which brings me within one year of the biblical ‘three score years and ten’.  So, it was good to read that as far as God is concerned we are never over the hill, passed it, burned out.  To the end of our lives, we ‘bear fruit’, we stay ‘fresh and green’, we continue to serve by proclaiming the great truths concerning God and His ways. 

 

These assurances were still glowing within when we went to see the new Poirot movie, ‘A Haunting In Venice.’  (Kenneth Branagh as Poirot will never surpass David Suchet in my eyes but it’s always good to have your prejudices challenged.). Poirot has retired and is living very privately in Venice.  He has taken great steps to avoid being drawn into further detective work even to the extent of hiring a bodyguard to keep people and their problems at a distance.   But there would not be a movie if this remained the state of affairs and very soon we see Poirot drawn into the work that has made him world-famous.  

 

That’s the only spoiler you will get.  But it was good Saturday afternoon entertainment and remarkable to me that there was a connection with Psalm 92.  In the end Poirot bears fruit in old age, shows himself to be fresh and green, and is ultimately fulfilled in the work he was destined to do.  

 

There have been a few challenges for me in retirement, not least the continuing treatment that leaves me below par for half the week.  But more that anything is the absence of preaching.  It is not something that can readily be put into words, but colleagues will know what I mean when I say that you are never more fulfilled when out of your reflection on God’s Word a message emerges which you are called to deliver to God’s people.  This is not to say that it comes easy.  There are battles to be fought in the preparation and in the very act of delivery but the fulfilment in the end is beyond anything else in human experience. 

 

When this is no longer a regular part of your life there is a sense of incompleteness at the centre of your inner being.  So, it has been a blessing recently to have the opportunity to preach in our parish church, Renfrew Trinity, and a few weeks ago in St. Andrew’s Trinity in Johnstone.  And I am looking forward to the couple of gigs I have in the diary.  It’s good to be still involved even if in a limited way.  And to do so in the assurances that come from Psalm 92 that I can bear fruit in old age, stay fresh and green and proclaim what I know to be true concerning the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Still Quarrying: Broken Trust: 'The Devil Amongst Us'?

When you are facing long-term medical treatment there are certain qualities that you have to learn to develop: patience, resilience, contentment.    But chief among these qualities is trust.  I’ve heard myself say to people throughout my time under treatment that you have to come to the place where you are content to let people do things to you in the faith that this is the best way forward for you.    Demanding scans, needles, cannulas, drugs that take the feet away from you.  But all prescribed and given in the confidence that this is for the good.  And we are called upon to accept the judgement of the medics.  The responsibility they carry is monumental.  They may be prescribing treatment that will initially make us feel worse, but the intention is that ultimately it will at least improve our quality of life or, indeed, cure.  And we trust them.

 

It's with this mind, that I am most disturbed by the Lucy Letby case.  Surely it is the biggest challenge in the whole area of trust to place the life of your baby in the hands of another.  If it’s difficult enough to place your own life in the hands of another, how much more when it is your baby?  And Lucy Letby continually reassured parents with the words: ‘Trust me I am a nurse.’  When something good is twisted and made to become an opportunity for evil then spiritually this is one of the worst things.  

 

Jesus was once accused of driving out demons by the power of Beelzebul.  He responded by saying that anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit is beyond forgiveness.  (Matthew 12: 32) Once you say God is bad the pathway to Him is blocked off.  What Lucy Letby did was to distort something that is good, trust, and make it the gateway for abuse and death.  

 

And what of Lucy Letby?  She has received the most severe custodial sentence since the abolition of capital punishment.  She will spend the rest of her life in jail.  Added to her crimes has been her refusal to attend court to hear the Judge’s remarks and the experiences of the parents whose lives she has affected irrevocably.  A last demonstration of control which seems to be part of her mindset.  

 

But what of her now?  I caught sight of a tabloid headline yesterday which topped a photograph of Lucy Letby with the words: ‘Proof That The Devil Is Amongst Us.’ 

She is deemed to be beyond normal human society and few would argue with that.  But in her lifetime as it stretches out before her is there no hope that there could be repentance?  Is it the case that the road to God is eternally blocked off to her?  I recent sang in Church Frances Crosby’s hymn with the verse:

 

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,

To every believer the promise of God;

The vilest offender who truly believes.

That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.’

 

In the latest revision of the Church of Scotland hymnbook that third line has been changed to ‘for every offender who truly believes/ that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.’  An updating of language?  Or a call to recognise that that there is no category of sinners - and we are all sinners - which is uniquely beyond the mercy of God?  

 

We need to pray for great humility when it comes to speculating on the eternal souls of others.  My overriding thought at this moment is that in prison Lucy Letby will come into touch with some Christian influence, a Chaplain, another prisoner, who will be used to bring about that radical change Paul spoke of when he said that those who are in Christ are a ‘new creation.’  

 

Final word.  Confronted with the worst in human conduct it is never inappropriate to look to ourselves for those times when we have hurt others or burned against them inwardly and stood in need of the mercy of God.   

Still Quarrying: Monday Memory.

 My treatment schedule has me at the Beatson for chemotherapy for three consecutive weeks, then a week’s break before it starts over again.  Each session can be for around two and a half hours but sometimes longer.   A lot depends on how busy the staff are or how soon the chemotherapy is sent up from the Pharmacy.   Usually, it doesn’t matter too much.  As long as I have a book I’m fine.  And the nurses pop in from time to time to see how things are and sometimes just for a chat.  Last Monday I was discussing tattoos with one.  

 

Round about 10. 30 am a lady or gent from the Beatson Charity will come round with tea, coffee and biscuits.  They are always welcome in their bright, yellow t-shirts and eagerness to serve.  Those I have got to know have had relatives who were treated at the Beatson, and this voluntary work is a gesture of thanks.  Having had my daily rocket fuel, ie. espresso, I usually have tea and can be persuaded to have a biscuit.  Not that I needed much persuasion last Monday because there on top of the biscuit tray was a Waggon Wheel!  That kick-started a memory.  My first day at school.  My play piece was a Waggon Wheel.  The lady smiled indulgently when I imparted this vital information.  I suppose she is used to old guys and their memories.  

 

It made me think of the power of physical objects to take you to another place, another time, a life-changing event.  Jesus understood that when on his final night on earth and surrounded by his friends He took a piece of bread and when He had given thanks said: ‘This is my body which is for you.  Do this in memory of me.’.’  And later He took a cup of wine and said: ‘This cup is God’s new covenant sealed in my blood.  Whenever you drink it do so in memory of me.’  

 

The significance of the bread and wine was changed.  No longer the food and drink of every day, so familiar to the disciples.  In future, the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine would be an opening up to Jesus, all that He was, all that He gave for them, all that He promised them in this life and the next.  They would never have understood  the Lord’s Supper as ‘just a memorial’.   The Holy Spirit was present as real as the bread and wine they touched and tasted.  And as they touched and tasted they renewed their relationship with Jesus, received anew His promises to them, and were encouraged by the assurance of their future place in His Kingdom.  All of this refreshing their inner being, strengthening faith, and renewing hope.  

 

It is almost a year now since I led a congregation in a celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  It is one of the many things I miss.  It could be quite overwhelming to think that in doing this we are connecting with generations of Christians going back to Jesus Himself.  The one act of worship that He has commanded us to do.  I sit in a pew now to receive the bread and wine and Covid has changed the way we do this.  But as long as the bread and wine are there Jesus and His promises are present and there is nothing better to provide ‘strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.’  

 

Lord Jesus,

 

As physical objects unlock the past, enrich the present, and bring hope for the future,

May the Lord’s Supper be a continuing source of grace as we seek to be faithful witnesses to your love.  Amen.  

Still Quarrying: George Alagiah.

 During my personal cancer experience there have been many people who have been an encouragement and an inspiration.   Those I have been privileged to support through their own cancer experience and others I have never met but have got to know through my reading and listening to media broadcasts, chief among the latter was George Alagiah.  Diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2014, and later having to deal with the Coronavirus during the pandemic, he was possessed of a cheerful optimism and carried on with his work, when able, with warmth and empathy.  

 

It was said of a well-known presenter lately that despite his popularity he couldn’t read an auto-cue.  That could never be said of George.  He seemed to reach out from the screen and not only touched us but gave us to believe that we were touching him.   He knew humanity’s problems; he was shaken by humanitarian crises; and as he engaged with various horrendous circumstances as a Foreign Correspondent you had the impression that he felt called to respond.   His journalist friend Allan Little said in his recent tribute that in George people saw ‘the outstretched hand of a shared humanity and a solidarity.’ 

 

In all his interviews about his cancer experience I found so much to relate to.  He spoke of finding something positive in his illness, of becoming more empathetic to others in their troubles, of the necessity of finding ‘a place of contentment’, of being grateful for what he had experienced in the past and what he had in the present, and of focussing on what might be in the future.  God has not been mentioned.  But I thank God for the gift of his life and how he lived his dying. 

Still Quarrying: I Don't Like Wednesdays!

It’s very much an oldie now but you still hear people humming, whistling, mumbling the Boomtown Rats song: ‘I Don’t Like Mondays.’  Bob Geldof wrote it after hearing about a shooting in an elementary school in San Diego USA.  A sixteen-year-old woman, Brenda Anne Spencer, fired at children in the school playground killing two adults and injuring eight children and one police officer.   Her explanation for her crime was: ‘I don’t like Mondays.  This livens up the day.’  

 

No one would want to endorse such an extreme and horrific reaction but if we take the title of the song, it captures what many of us feel.  That’s why people still hum it, whistle it, and mumble it.    After a pleasant weekend it’s back to work, school, college and sometimes that involves a big psychological push.  For me, Monday is the day when I receive chemotherapy at the Beatson which also involves taking steroids.  I’m left a bit wobbly and that continues into Tuesday.  It’s on Wednesday that I experience the crash.  I’m told it has to do with the steroids.  They give you a bit of a lift and then let you down, sometimes quite dramatically.   So, for me it’s not Mondays that are the problem, it’s Wednesdays.  I don’t like them.  

 

It's not easy to describe what it’s like.  The nearest I can get to it is ‘Space Dust’.  If you are of my generation, you may remember it from the penny tray in the sweetie shop.  You could say it was a more dynamic version of sherbet.  When it went into your mouth it sparked and fizzed and bubbled, and all in all it was good fun.  The more exhibitionist among us kept our mouths open when the sparking and fizzing and bubbling was going on.  Well, it’s good to share the best of yourself.  Wednesday is like having Space Dust sprinkled on my brain and it’s not such good fun.  You feel you are not part of this world, you slow down, concentration is low, you sometimes have to think carefully before you speak.  

 

I don’t like Wednesdays, but they are opportunities to focus on Paul’s vision of contentment:

 

‘ . . . I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength.’  (Philippians 4: 11-13).’  

 

So how do we take this forward?  It’s not just about relaxation techniques and trying to be calm.  It’s not just about gritting your teeth and being determined that you will not be overwhelmed by this experience.  It’s not even about focussing on your favourite Bible verses – although of the three options opened up here that is obviously the best.  What is needed is the conviction that no matter how you may feel the God revealed in the Scriptures and supremely in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is present in the midst of the Space Dust.  It’s a challenge.  But to say anything else is to say there are some areas of life that God has abandoned.  That there are some areas of life that are too dark, too painful, too perplexing for Him to dwell in.  

 

A seventeenth century frier Brother Lawrence wrote a devotional book called The Practice Of The Presence Of God which has at its heart the conviction that we are never out of the presence of God whether engaged in the most menial tasks or struggling to make sense of the darkest circumstances.  God is present.  Nothing will ever separate us from His love.  His good purpose for His people will never be sabotaged by the worst of times.  We need to pray out of this conviction even when it doesn’t feel true.

 

Many years ago, a friend of mine told me that he wasn’t convinced that you can pray anywhere and at any time.  You need time set apart, and a special place.   Certainly, you can point to Jesus and His frequent ‘drawing apart’, to be alone with His heavenly Father.  But He also prayed on the cross when He no longer felt the presence of God and considered Himself abandoned.  He continued to practice the Presence when to paraphrase the hymn he felt the Father had turned His face away.  

 

It is this perseverance with the God revealed to us in Scripture and in the life and ministry of Jesus that opens us up to the strength experienced by Paul and leads us to that contentment that can be hours even in the days we don’t like.  

Still Quarrying: 'The Perfect Golden Circle.'

 It’s always good to discover new writers and even more so when they have something to offer.  This one came with no personal recommendation but was a pick-up in the local library.  It was the unusual story that grabbed me.  In 1989 England two friends set out in a rundown campervan to create crop-circles, so intricate that they are soon attracting not merely national but international attention.  

 

Along the way the connection with mankind and the ‘land’ is explored along with commercialisation, the power of money and status, the mystery and power of art.  Sounds a bit heavy when I put it down like that, but the writing has a light touch, and the most engaging aspect of the book is the two main characters Calvert and Redbone.  

 

Calvert is an ex-SAS Falklands veteran and is carrying many traumatic experiences.  It is never stated but regular flashbacks would indicate Post-            Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  For him the creation of crop circles - the organisation, the purpose, the achievement - is therapy.  

 

Redbone is an aging punk band member who receives mystical visions and has a strong connection to the ‘land’, to the ancient people who lived on it and the wisdom that guided them.  He lives in a campervan.  

 

An unlikely couple.  We never learn how they met but there is a deep friendship which in the main does not require too much conversation to survive the demands of their work and their sometime disappointments and setbacks.  Not much good stuff is written about male-friendship but this falls into that category. 

 

It’s difficult to go into the plot too much. I’m sensitive to throwing out too many ‘spoilers'. But along the way there are challenges human, technological and personal that threaten to throw them off course.  At one point Calvert and Redbone have a discussion about ‘the perfect golden circle’.  Redbone doubts it could ever exist: ‘I don’t believe anything man-made can ever be perfect.'  Even if a machine is employed to make the perfect golden circle will incorporate man’s imperfection at some level.  In the end Redbone concedes, reluctantly, that the perfect golden circle still exists in our minds.  And it is this which in the end drives forward their Great Project.  

 

In there is an acknowledgement in the two men that they are being driven by ‘something’ outside themselves.  Redbone is influenced by Buddhist and Hindu thought, Calvert driven by the power of ‘truth and beauty.’  How it all works out in the end is deeply moving. And reminds Christians that there many discussions out there with broken but commendable people in which to engage. 

Still Quarrying: From Pulpit To Pew.

 In retirement there have been new things to get used to.  House, community, relationships.  Chief among the new things for me, however, is my role in the Church,  not leading from the front on the Lord’s Day but sitting in a pew.  This I have been doing now for the last eight months.  It hasn’t been as great a challenge as you might think.  Our parish Church, ten minutes’ walk away, is blessed by a warm, welcoming congregation and a minister who is committed to the preached Word.  Still, I have missed the preparation for preaching and the privilege of delivering it to God’s people.  My continuing cancer treatment can leave me debilitated in body and mind and just not fit to engage with the task of preaching at the previous level.    But it would be odd indeed to see that diminish from your life and not feel the difference.   Paul tried to imagine what it would be like not to preach.  He cried:

 

‘ . . . when I preach the gospel I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach.  Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.’  (I Corinthians 9: 16). 

 

The circumstances are different but at the heart of these words is a realisation that the task of preaching is part of Paul’s very being, that he has been commissioned by God to deliver the Gospel, and not to do so leaves him unfulfilled and, indeed, under judgement.   This is a realisation that every preacher shares with the apostle and it is not easy to face the fact that preaching is no longer as central to your life as it once was.  

 

But this leads me to reflect on something that Eric Alexander once wrote:  

 

‘The man I am is more important to God than the work I do.  The secret of failure is often failure in secret.  Resist professionalism in the ministry: be yourself.’  

 

I may state that preaching is a priority, a privilege, and the great fulfilment of my life but my life being completely open to God,  what is God’s supreme purpose with me?  It is to see Christ reflected in my life.  And perhaps that is the great lesson of these pew-filling years.  No longer having the status of ‘the minister’ delivering the Word, what impact is the preached Word having on my life?

 

Confession time.  There are passages in Scripture that when I come across them in my personal devotions something within me says: ‘Not this again!’  We’ve been over this time and time again and is there anything else to be squeezed out of it?  The Parable of the Sower is an example.  But there is a sense that there is no more important passage in the whole of the Gospels.  The fact that it appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke would seem to underline this.  And the strange thing is that at the heart of this story is how much is wasted in the preaching of the Gospel.  We are told about a farmer who sows seed which falls on a path, among rocks and in competition with weeds.  Only a percentage falls among ‘good soil’ and yields a crop.   What we normally miss is what Jesus says in in Luke 8: 16-18 after he has told the story:

 

'No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed.  Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.  For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.  Therefore consider carefully how you listen.  Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have , even what they think they have will be taken from them.'  

We live open lives before God.  Nothing is hidden.  So how do we look?  That’s the challenge and Jesus warns us that the key to spiritual growth is to heed the call ‘to consider carefully how we listen.’   It is important to hear and understand but it doesn’t stop there.  How much that we hear is applied to out lives and becomes part of our spiritual DNA?  Jesus unpacks the ‘good soil’:

 

‘ . . . the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.’  (Luke 8: 15.)

 

If this sounds like a dig at those who fill the pews, remember I am one of them now!  Moreover, while we listeners have a responsibility as we leave Church on the Lord’s Day to consider how we will respond to the preached Word, spare a prayer for those who have been preparing for preaching and tasked with delivering it to God’s people.  They have been ‘listening’ with mind and heart to the truth which alone will facilitate the growth of the Kingdom.  They are called to deliver that truth to God’s people on dependence in the Holy Spirit.  Often, we do not appreciate the responsibility involved in this and the accountability that hovers over every preacher.  A colleague tells me that he is embarking on preaching series in the Letter of James.  Sooner or later, he will bump up against these words:

 

‘Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.’   (James 3: 1)

 

If anything should convince us of the responsibility and accountability attached to preaching it is this.  The truths revealed in Scripture are vital to the growth of the Kingdom on earth and can never be undermined by carelessness, superficiality, or self-serving interpretation.  All of which are temptations to the preacher and must be resisted.  The preacher may well wonder on descending the pulpit: ‘Did they get the message?’   Of equal importance for the preacher on ascending the pulpit is to ask: ‘Have I got the message?’  

 

That became important for me once again last Sunday when I preached at an evening service in Renfrew Trinity.  First time in eight months!  It felt good and I am grateful to my minister, Stuart Steell, for the opportunity.  But more than my satisfaction is how the preaching was received in eternity.  Did the angels rejoice in the Word that sustains and brings growth to the Kingdom?  

Still Quarrying: Seven Psalms.

 My first contact with the music of Paul Simon was at a BB District Service.  This must have been in the mid 1960s and as part of the service the young minister played two recorded Simon and Garfunkel songs, providing us with printed lyrics to follow.  One was definitely ‘I Am A Rock’.  I think the other was ‘You Can tell the Word’ from their first album.

 

This was the first time I had heard recorded music in a church service, and it made a big impact.  It made a big impact on our BB Captain also but it was not favourable!  But it  made me think that S&G were worth exploring.  I became a fan and over the years have found Paul Simon worth keeping in touch with.  From a Jewish background but nevertheless professing not to be religious he is among those artists who would describe themselves as ‘spiritual.’  I’m never sure what is meant by this but in Paul’s sense I think it means an appreciation of the ‘deeper’ things in life and an openness to the existence of God.  This has come out in albums over the years but never more clearly than in his latest offering: ‘Seven Psalms’.  

 

The title itself says something to anyone from a Jewish or Christian background.  The Book of Psalms has been described as the Prayer Book of Israel and the Praise Book of Israel.  It gives believers and opportunity to open up to God in praise but also to express the darker thoughts and emotions that commonly afflict them.  This is its greatest value allowing us to see that the life of faith is not always a travelling on smooth and fragrant ground.  There are dark valleys that cannot be avoided, and they can be bewildering and painful.

 

Paul brings this out in the first movement of the album, which is a continuous 30-minute unfolding, is called ‘The Lord’.  The idea of God brings out positive images:

 

‘The Lord is a virgin forest

 The Lord is a forest Ranger

 The Lord is a meal for the poorest of the poor

 A welcome door to the stranger . . . 

 

The seeds we gather 

 From the gardener’s glove

 Live forever

 Nothing dies of too much love.’  

 

That is a final line  destined to be quoted much!  But ‘The Lord’ ends on a darker note which we cannot escape when considering the God of the Bible, a book which Paul reveals in a recent interview is never very far from him:

 

‘The Covid virus is the Lord

 The Lord is the ocean rising

 The Lord is a terrible swift sword

 A simple truth surviving.’  

 

People of faith cannot really escape this.  The struggle we sometimes have in the promise that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God, not even the darkest,  the most painful experiences, and yet when they come they take us to the end of ourselves.   And yet Paul is not content to leave it there.  In ‘My Professional Opinion’, which is an aspiration to ‘carry my grievances /down to the shore/And wash then away in the tumbling tide’, he ends with a startling declaration:

 

‘All that really matters

 Is the one who became us

 Anointed and gamed us

 With His opinions.’  

 

If the sleeve-notes are to be trusted, then the higher case at ‘His’ belong to the author.  

 

So where does it all take us this quite remarkable album which has been attracting those proverbial ‘rave reviews’?  Some might say that it’s typical of the large community of ‘spiritual’ people who treat things beyond sight, touch and sound like a giant smorgasbord from which you can pick or choose whatever appeals to you.  I would not agree with this.  He may not have made the crucial breakthrough to faith in Christ but Paul offers us personal insight that leads to confession, an awareness of inspiration as a gift – Dip your hand in heaven’s waters/God’s imagination/ Dip you’re your hands in Heaven’s waters’ – and in the final song, ‘Wait’, there is a longing for completion in a life to come:

 

‘I want to 

 Believe in

 A dreamless transition

 Wait

 

 ‘I don’t want 

 I don’t want to be near 

 My dark intuition.

 

‘I need you here by my side

My beautiful mystery guide

Wait.’

 

Which in the end is where all people of faith arrive.

Still Quarrying: The Less Dead.

 Even hardened crime fiction fans can find Denise Mina hard to take.  The language, the violence, the psychological disturbance - too deep a descent into the darkness for some people.  The Less Dead might be an example of this.  Briefly, the central character is Margo, a doctor,  who was adopted as a baby.  She goes in search of her birth mother and discovers that she was a sex worker who was murdered, one of a series of women murdered in Glasgow at that time.  The killer has never been found.

In her ‘Acknowledgments’ at the end of the book Mina thanks various people who have helped in her research.  As the narrative unfolds it is obvious that she has engaged with many of the issues that surround sex work, not least the negative attitudes of society in general to the women involved.  The work is never commended but the lack of compassion for those who feel driven to the work and are constantly vulnerable to physical abuse and sometimes murder is highlighted and challenged.  The title of the book is a description apparently used by police to describe sex workers.  Nikki, who turns out to be Margo’s aunt, says: ‘When we get killed they call us the “less dead”, like we were never really alive to begin with.’  

It’s a powerful book focussing not just on the ‘issue’ but on the conditions that drive women to  this lifestyle and the dangers they face when involved.   Sometimes it does feel more like a polemic than a narrative, and at least one critic I have read recently, is not happy with the tendency of some crime novelists to use their work to ride their hobby horses.  I take this point but if you have a deeply felt concern and you are gifted as a storyteller then this can be a powerful medium to alert others to things that need to be exposed and changed.  Ian Rankin has recently written:

‘While I have written in a variety of genres, I continue to find the crime novel the perfect vehicle for a discussion of contemporary issues in the most unflinching terms.  After all, the detective has an ‘all areas pass’ to every aspect of the contemporary urban sene, and this is the way for the crime writer to take the reader into forbidden territory . .  .’   

The he danger for the writer is that the ‘contemporary issues’ can dominate to the detriment of the narrative thus affecting the reader’s engagement.  But I have to say I am grateful for the experience of reading The Less Dead.  Great plotting, well-drawn characters, some brilliant turns of phrase and it took me into  that ‘forbidden territory’ which exists beyond the novel.  

Thoughts of the Incarnation of Jesus were never far away.  The apostle John tells us that ‘The Word became flesh’, not in an sanitised, uncomplicated world.  In the Israel of Jesus’ day women sold sex, tax collectors swindled the poor, wrongdoers could be stoned to death or nailed to a cross.   John writes: ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us.’    (John 1: 14)  Among us!  The original Greek of those words can be translated: ‘The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.’  Jesus never excluded himself from any area of society, even that inhabited by ‘the less dead.’   The religious establishment of his day were scandalised by his keeping company with the sex workers of his day.  They could not grasp that to find the lost sheep you have to search, to raise the fallen you have to get alongside, to heal you have to reach out.  

The Less Dead has no one that might be described as a conventional ‘hero.’  But there are women who may have made self-destructive choices in their past but who have a deep inner strength.   This has enabled them to endure violence, addiction, injustice, rejection, and yet still to care for others who have fallen into the darkness they have known.   God is a faint echo in the world of this book but we are drawn into the world of individual women and men, human beings who Scripture tells us are created in the image of God.  Someone has said that no matter their moral and spiritual condition His fingerprints are on their lives, shown in those things said and done that enhance the lives of others and strengthens community.  And according to the teaching of Jesus no one falls out of the loving focus of God.  In a recent interview Denise Mina describes herself as ‘a hopeful person’ and that this is her personal choice.  She doesn’t go into the reasons for her hopefulness.  But I can hope because of the love shown to the world in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  It was his destiny, in the words of Isaiah, to be ‘despised, and . . . held in low esteem’ (Isaiah 53: 3) He was among the ‘less dead’ of his day.  But the forgiveness that flows from his death and the renewal promised in his resurrection has given us a strong foundation for hope.