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.    

Still Quarrying: Core Strength

An article by Alex Massie in the Sunday Times caught my attention more than usual.  He was examining how adherents of a particular political party allowed their allegiance to define the ‘core of their being’.  He supported this by reference to a recent survey which showed that a majority of this party’s members took personally any criticism of their party or their party’s leader.   

I suppose this could be extended to many different areas of life.  Football teams, authors, singers, church traditions.  The list is endless.  A blow against any cherished part of our being is a blow against us.  And experience shows that it can affect personal relationships.  Love me love my politics, my team, my church.   If any of this, and this is just a small representation, has allowed to sink so deeply that it defines the ‘core of our being’ then we need to be concerned.

Thinking about this my mind was drawn to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.  Some years ago he went public over his discovery that the man he had always thought was his biological father was not in fact.  He told the complicated story but in the end said that although he had been shocked, and there were issues arising from this he would have to deal with, he was reassured in the knowledge that his real identity was in Jesus Christ.  It was this that defined ‘the core’ of his being.  

This issue of who we are in Christ comes through powerfully in the thought of the apostle Paul.  In Philippians 3: he reflects on the things that defined his core being as an orthodox Jew:

‘ . .  . circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.’  (Vv. 5-6)

But he goes on:

‘But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ . . .’  (vv. 7-8). 

All these influences that shaped his inner being he know regards as ‘rubbish’ compared to what he has found to be true in Christ.  It is this which must shape his core being.  Having pout his trust in Jesus, and received His Spirit, nothing should get in the way of the Spirit’s work, to shape him from within according to the pattern of Jesus’ life, to produce ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’  (Galatians 5: 22-23.). 

You have no doubt heard it said the God works in mysterious ways.  He certainly works in surprising ways.  I am grateful to a Sunday Times journalist in leading me to a serious spiritual check-up.  People have been scanning, examining and probing me in various ways over the last three years or so.  I am grateful for this.  But nothing is more important that those occasions when the Spirit opens me up and lays bear the core of my being. 

Still Quarrying: The Fruitful Vine.

I have not been a diligent blogger recently.  At many levels the medication I am on at present is taking its toll.   However, what follows below appeared as a Facebook memory today, a pastoral letter I wrote eleven years ago when I was coming to terms with a blood abnormality that might develop into cancer.   I have no clear memory of having written it but thought it might be appropriate in the season of Lent.

 I had never read anything by Ben Okri until recently when this prize-winning novelist and poet wrote an article for a Sunday supplement.  He mentioned his childhood in Nigeria  in a time of civil war.  Young Ben saw things that even now he finds difficult to talk about.  Dead bodies in rivers.  People shot in the streets.  He writes:

 

‘I’ve blanked out a lot of it.  But writing comes partly out of being wounded by life.  Something has had to have bruised and shaken you a little bit; otherwise, why do we ask questions?  It’s very rare that people who have lived perfect lives become artists because the need to create art is connected to a need to heal something that is imperfect.’

 

There’s a lot to think about there but I am struck by his idea that suffering can be creative.  Certainly, you don’t have to go too far into the artistic world to find this borne out.  The painting of Van Gogh and the music of Tchaikovsky were the products of tortured psyches - and it has often been said that Bob Dylan is at his best when he is going through a bad time. 

 

Let’s be clear.  Suffering is never to be commended.  No one wants it.  Of course there are people, perhaps the majority, who look at their suffering and find no answer to the question why and, moreover, see no good in it.  But the testimony of people like Ben Okri shows there is this other side to the darkness.  And then there is the Cross.  On the face of it a disgusting spectacle but it stands at the centre of our faith as an assurance that there is forgiveness with our God and the promise of a life beyond this life.  Jesus sacrifice was motivated by a need to heal something that was imperfect in us.

 

This tells me that there are no no-go areas for our God, not even our experiences of pain, abandonment and anguish.  Nothing prevents him working out His purpose in our lives; in fact he works through our suffering to make us the people he wants us to be.  Jesus once said something startling: ‘I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.’  (John 15: 1-2)  I confess that I haven’t done much pruning in the garden but doesn’t it involve cutting, breaking and sap bleeding from branches?  But it is all necessary for the plant or tree to grow towards its full fruitfulness.  Jesus says the same process is necessary for spiritual fruit to grow in our lives. 

 

This is one of the challenges of Easter.  To live as Jesus lived in the firm conviction that while the Father’s will is sometimes hard, it is always good. 

Still Quarrying: Vast Eternal Plan.

 

I never saw Fiddler On The Roof but at one time everyone was familiar with one of the big moments when the main character, Tevye, sang ‘If I Were A Rich Man.’   It came to mind the other day when I heard that the actor who played Tevye in the movie, Chaim Topol, had died.   For some reason two lines from the song stuck in my mind.  Crying out to God Tevye says:

‘Would it spoil some vast eternal plan/

                                                                     If I were a wealthy man.’  

In the outworking of the providence of God surely there is room for a Tevye who has no financial worries and can provide the best for his family.  Would there really be any major disturbance in the goodness, justice and love of God if this was to happen?  We can all get caught up in this current of thought. It may not be a yearning for money but substitute ‘wealthy’ for ‘healthy’ or anything that we believe will enhance our quality of life and we stand with Tevye.  What would it cost God to make our lives just that bit easier?  Surely  that would be the merest tweak to the ‘vast eternal plan’.

That protest can be heard time and again in Scripture.  Man and women faced with pain, poverty, persecution, psychological and spiritual desolation and yearning for something better.  David, Job, Paul come to mind.  Sometimes their prayers were answered but often not - or at least not in the way they expected.  What they were challenged to believe was that whatever the circumstances God was still present and still working out his good and loving purpose for their lives.  Their suffering did not exclude them from the ‘vast eternal plan.’      

I was faced with this challenge in the first year of my studies for the ministry.   There were many books I had to read and some made a big impact,  but none more than a book that was not on my reading list and written by someone who would not be recognised in academic circles as a front-line theologian.  It was called A God Who Acts by Harry Blamires.   It was an attempt to work out what the Incarnation teaches us about God and how He works in the lives and circumstances of men and women.   Central to Blamires thought is that the life of Jesus was on the surface not one of success and accomplishment, pain free and without any psychological or spiritual disturbance.   And yet, God was in Christ, and through a life that that was anticipated by Isaiah as being characterised by sorrow and acquaintance with grief He made it possible for humankind to be redeemed from sin and death.  

Blamires writes:

‘The God of Christians, if he is truly revealed in Jesus Christ, is not a distributor of earthly  success and prosperity.  His chosen course on earth brought his disciples to a shameful rout, and the most faithful ones to the foot of his cross.  Few of us have the right to declare what is the true nature of that Kingdom of Heaven in which we are called to share here and now.  But many of us can safely what it is not.  It is not an eternal Speech Day, at which prizes are handed out to the week’s best pray-er of prayers and the weeks best doer of good works.  God chooses no “Man of the Year” to whom to present a silver trophy - a cup flowing over with health and wealth . . . If we turn earnestly to God, imagining that we are entering a discreet competition for the award of earthly well-being, then sooner or later, with more or less pain, God will make plain our error.’  

Blamires recognises that this can come over as being unduly morbid but if God was in Christ then He is present in suffering and able to work through suffering to a good end.  In one of the worst experiences in the life of David when all his natural resources seemed to dissolve we are told he ‘found strength in the Lord his God.’  (1 Samuel 30: 6).  That was possible because of the closeness of God to human experience the ultimate assurance of which is in the life and ministry of Jesus.  

When we think of quality of life we think of material stability, good health, rewarding relationships but from the perspective of God the absence of these does not mean exclusion from the ‘vast eternal plan’ but fixes us more firmly in its outworking and takes us forward in the hope of what can be accomplished even in our brokenness.   

Still Quarrying: Eric Alexander.

 The Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Eric Alexander was not just a tribute to the man to whom the description ‘great’ has been used in the days following his death.  It was a witness to the hope of the Resurrection and to what the Holy Spirit of God can do in the life and ministry of a man who seeks to live in step with Him.   In his contribution to the service Ian Hamilton said that her never came away from a sermon Eric preached without wanting to be a better Christian.  Many of those present knew exactly what he meant.  Eric’s preaching did not just give us a deeper understanding of biblical truth it encouraged us to apply that truth to our lives.  The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s coming into our lives is to make us more like Jesus.  Nothing gives God the Father more pleasure than to see His Son reflected in the lives of those for whom He died.  Eric’s preaching did not allow us merely to enjoy hearing the Gospel preached in such a clear and passionate way, every word coming across as if newly minted.  We were brought to a sense of responsibility.  Having heard and understood how willing were we now to live by God’s ways and to be motivated by God’s priorities?

Ian never came away from Eric’s preaching without wanting to be a better Christian.  But there is something I would add to that.  I have often said that in the aftermath of Eric’s preaching I had my vision of God expanded.  I may well have reflected on what a great preacher I had just heard but more than anything else - and more important to the preacher - I was carrying a renewed awareness of what a great God had been revealed in the life and ministry of Jesus.   I have often heard Eric’s preaching described as ‘majestic’.  That was because he had been deeply touched by the majesty of God and was given grace to convey that to those who were blessed in listening.  One of the books he wrote in retirement was ‘Our Great God And Saviour’, a reflection on Paul’s description of Jesus  in Titus 2: 13.  If we were looking for a way to sum up the chief motivation in Eric’s life and ministry it was to being that greatness home to the hearts of men and women.  

That he did this is a testimony to his humility.   His pulpit presence was always appropriate to the Word that God had placed on his heart.  I have heard this described as ‘awesome’.   But this was only possible due to his awareness of where he stood in relation to Christ.  As he came to end of his life John Newton said:  ‘My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.’   That is the default position of every Christian and no one felt this more deeply that Eric Alexander.  To keep company with him was not first and foremost to be with ‘a prince of preachers’, as he was often described, but to be in fellowship with a brother in Christ who supported you with his prayers and coveted your prayers for him.   In the times I was blessed to share with him he would often end by saying: ‘Let’s continue to pray for one another.’  

His concern for me over the past few years of cancer treatment was a continuing encouragement.  His phone calls, emails, and written notes always seemed to arrive at just the right time.  In his last phone call he said: ‘I pray for you every day.’   I believe the Lord showed me the way forward in ministry through Eric but along with that his friendship and support have been a refreshment to my spirit in these days of uncertainty at a personal level and in the life of the Church.  

Still Quarrying: Days Of The Faint Line

Monday 12 December and I had  been coughing from a dry throat for a few days.   I was also a bit sniffly and  falling asleep in the chair more than usual.  I put it down to the kind of cold that many were catching in the restriction-free days were were enjoying. 

But Gabrielle had some symptoms and we decided that as we had a date to be with ‘Breakaway’, the dementia care group in St Paul’s we had better take a Covid test before going amongst that vulnerable group.  

I began the procedure without much thought or fear.  I had always tested negative through the worst of the pandemic and was surely fortified by the six jabs I had received.  But there it was on that wee oblong piece of plastic, the extra line that told me I was positive.  It was faint but the written and spoke word from the people that know told me that that doesn’t matter.  A double line is a double line.  

So an immediate call to Audrey, the myeloma nurse at the Beatson.  She told me  that as someone with a compromised immunity system I would qualify for anti-viral drugs.  She gave me an NHS number to phone.   I had to tell my story as a myeloma sufferer and the drugs would be sent out by courier.   They arrived within hours.  I was assured that bad things may not happen but they might.  So another regimen of pills had to be taken over five days and the course completed even if there were early improvements in my symptoms.  

By Friday of that week the faint but frightening line had disappeared.  The lady on the NHS advice line had said that hopefully the anti-viral drugs would deal with the symptoms and keep me out of hospital!  I think perhaps that that the Covid bug had been with me for a time before the test and was on the way to burning out.  But the drug did keep the symptoms at bay.   And unbelievably throughout this Gabrielle continued to test negative.  So with a confirmatory negative test on Saturday 17 we were set fair to spend Christmas with the family in Cheltenham.  

In the height of the pandemic I had often half-jokingly said that waiting for the result of a Covid test did wonders for your prayer life.  But that particularly week took me to a new depth.  A new wave of vulnerability swept through me.  You come to terms with living with an incurable disease.  Most of the time you don’t think about it very much.  But now and again the screw tightens and your feel the pressure.  That the way it was in the days of the faint line.  

And you think about the  blog you wrote on 11 December when you emphasised the importance of personal faith in Jesus no matter what circumstances are unfolding.   Well, now was my opportunity to put that into practise, to live that out.  I remembered the final lines I wrote:

‘Let our prayer be that by the end of Advent 2022 there will be a people renewed in their faith, closer to Jesus, confident in His promises, clear with regard to our destiny in Him.’

We too often forget that God’s way of growing a people like this is to lead them through days of challenge in which they will have opportunity to renew faith, become closer to Jesus, find new confidence  in His promises and be more clear in our regard to our destiny in Him.

With everything that was happening I missed out on blogging about the faith of Mary, a traditional  Advent theme.  ‘Greatly troubled’ by her destiny revealed by the angel, with questions in her mind, she was still able to say:

‘I am the Lord’s servant.  May your word to me be fulfilled.’   That was not the end of her questions or, indeed, her suffering.  But through many a day of challenge she trusted the God she knew.