Life in the mousehole

We haven’t done much blogging this month – not because we’ve been slacking on vacation, though.  Actually we’ve been rather busy.  John has just completed a major revision of his book, Introducing the New Testament – all 200,000 words of it (and then some).  And started on its Old Testament counterpart (3 chapters done, 10 more to go).  Olive has been working flat out with a church reassessing its mission activities in the community.  And for fun, we’ve remodelled the garden, which is a sizeable enterprise in itself (the picture only shows less than half of it).

Garden for a mousehole

Finding piles of wonderfully flat stones on a local beach has provided a great supply of materials, but by the time we’ve filled one bag of them we’re both struggling with the weight – plenty of time to reflect on other weights we all carry around in life.  And also to get rid of some of ours by throwing smaller stones into the sea with a ‘and that ones for him‘ sort of prayer (write your own script).  It may sound mad, but it’s a great way to de-stress and put awkward people in perspective.

Oh, and on top of all that, we now have a hive full of honey bees buzzing round the garden – who of course need lots of tlc and who also provide a great deal of fascination and fun.  And are amazingly docile – not a sting in sight, nor even an angry bee in fact.  Nice to know that we must be in tune with nature.

This week we’re off for a 24 hour trip to the Edinburgh Book Festival, for a Society of Authors event hosting the great and the good of the worlds of books, politics, civic life, etc.  More on that on our return.  Well, if it’s as good as the publicity suggests, otherwise there’ll be nothing to report on.

Midsummer delights

We took a couple of days off this week, thinking that June might actually be summer in Scotland.  How wrong can you be!  It wasn’t just all four seasons in the proverbial 24 hours, but all four of them in the space of about 40 minutes.  The drive to Glasgow on Monday started in dull, though dry weather as we left rural Aberdeenhire, but by the time we were passing Stirling there was actually snow at the side of the road.  We had to look at least twice, but sure enough – not hailstones, but real snow.  Not to mention a sky as black as night and flooding all over the place.  Then just 15 minutes later, bright sunshine, which continued all the way to Glasgow and for the rest of the day.  Still, it was just as well that the main attraction was not outdoors.

And it was well worth travelling through fire and brimstone to be there!  The main attraction was a concert by The Priests, three Irish priests who’ve just shot to fame from nowhere in less than 12 months following the release of their first album last Christmas.  

In an obviously unscripted dialogue, their informal laid-back style of conversation throughout the concert was something else.  Fun, faith, spontaneity, and a lot of easy talk about God and the spiritual, not to mention their fantastic singing just made it a great occasion.  And where else would you find a concert where the most prominent projected icon is a cross?  And it wasn’t all a bunch of old grannies either: we sat next to a couple of twenty-something young women who must have been first in line to get there, and whose excitement at seeing The Priests in person was … well, infectious.

Next day we went to see an exhibition of Edvard Munch’s work, which (as we expected) evoked the exact opposite set of emotions, with his obsessions with failed love affairs, death and, of course, stress – most famously expressed in his painting The Scream. 

But as well as that there are various versions of his Madonna on display, along with an intriguing portrait of Nietzsche, and a striking self-portrait.  The exhibition runs till September, and is free so well worth a visit if you like that sort of thing.

After that, a walk down the street to the Kelvingrove Gallery to take (yet another) look at Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross,

and while we were viewing that we had an unexpected (and free) organ recital.

Of course, all this was interspersed with new conversations, about the meaning of life, faith, spirituality, theology … and how cool it would be to have The Priests as pastors.  And on the way home we called by this interesting studio.  A two day outing doing these things probably tells you something about us …

When things come together

 

Don’t you just love it when things work out – and the last few days have been like that for us.  It started when a car that had been out of action for more than five weeks was finaly sorted just when we were starting to think it might be finished, or might be very expensive to repair.  That was a particular bonus for us, as we needed to be in two different places today, separated by 120 miles or so, and for various reasons both needed cars to reach our respective destinations.  It’s been an interesting emotional journey, working out how to share a car, especially when we have taken it for granted in accepting engagements that the two of us could be in different places at the same time.  Only magnified, of course, by the fact that we live in the middle of nowhere, five miles from the nearest public transport.  A test of patience on our part, and a mark of patience on the part of the workshop mechanics.  It eventually came down to an electronic component that cost peanuts …

So, we got to our engagements today: one of us in Edinburgh, leading a workshop on clown ministry in a deprived neighbourhood, and the other in Aberdeenshire with the Diocese of Aberdeen.  No prizes for guessing who was in which place!  In different ways, both events were transformational, and not just for us.  There’s always something specially rewarding about ministry in a deprived space, and seeing how the Gospel lifts up and empowers those who are so easily marginalized.  And that’s just the church leaders – who are increasingly disempowered and discouraged by the realization that what they have been doing isn’t working any more.  The Episcopal Church is a minor player in Scottish church life, but there was a remarkable degree of openness and expectancy among the folks from Aberdeen diocese, and some meaningful conversations and engagements.  And – in both places – no angry people.  That has to be good news.  All too often, those who are struggling, for whatever reason, become embittered and angry – and show it whenever they get the chance, blaming whoever happens to be in the firing line.  Not doing that surely has to be a spiritual gift in itself.  It is certainly a sign of growing spiritual maturity.  And that must be an evidence of hope and faith in the future.  Which, when you think about it, is what Pentecost is all about.  So on Pentecost eve, how encouraging to be able to blog like this at the end of a day well spent, in which we both found encouragement – and signs of God at work – in such diverse spaces.

Anger mismanagement

According to a poll published today, the British are the angriest people in Europe – and the Scots are more angry than most.  Apparently, Scottish people get angry 4.5 times a day, compared with the UK average of 4 explosive episodes.  Which compares with 3.5 for the Italians and 3 for the French (both regularly regarded as much more emotional nations than the British).  The even tempered Scandinavians, though, only get angry once every five days.  For more on this story, look here!

We’ve recently had a few examples of why Scottish anger levels might be quite high.  More than two weeks ago a church mice car broke down and had to be transported back home from the roadside.  It still isn’t repaired, in fact the workshop doesn’t even know what’s wrong with it (apart from the obvious, that it doesn’t go).  Then just this afternoon it took over two hours to drive from the city of Aberdeen to the rural mousehole – a journey that should take about 30 minutes.  And no, we weren’t in the broken down car.  This was a combination of road works and silly drivers that created gridlock of such proportions that nothing was moving at all.  Surprisingly, though, the survey’s predictions were nowhere in evidence.  If people were angry, they certainly weren’t showing it.  Just patiently waiting to get through.  Is the explanation to be found in the famously buttoned-up Scottish personality type?  Or, more worryingly, perhaps the pent-up frustration is being worked out in the home environment as couples squabble or even beat each other up.  If that seems far-fetched, the other week the Glasgow police force was put on high alert because the rival football teams Rangers and Celtic were playing each other – and statistically, that means a significant measurable increase in domestic violence.

Of course, there’s always the theological explanation, that belief in an angry God makes anger OK for everyone else.  Maybe we should plot the results of this poll alongside the traditional belief systems of the various nations?  Does Calvinism make you more angry than Lutheranism?  Or maybe not.  It could generate a lot of emails from angry Christians

Sent to Sheffield

Take about 70 people from all over the UK, include a handful from mainland Europe (among them Ole Skjerbaek Madsen and his wife Dorte who have a ministry called In the Master’s light), send them to Sheffield for a weekend – and what do you get?  The answer in this case is: one of the most creative and exciting events we’ve been to for a very long time!  This was the conference on Reaching out in Mind, Body, and Spirit, organized by Steve Hollinghurst and Howard Gardner of Journey into Wholeness, and subtitled the first UK conference for Christians ministering within the New Spiritualities.  Or, put another way – a bunch of people who go as Christians to things like mind, body, spirit fairs and psychic events – and quite often get into a bit of trouble for doing so!  Trouble from other Christians, that is.  But people who, judging by what we saw, are having enormous fun in doing so, while also fulfilling their personal calling to be in such places.

So did we enjoy ourselves?  You’d better believe it!  Not a single angry person in sight – so that has to be a first for a Christian conference, just for starters.  Of course, there were loads of tough questions being asked and engaged with – but all of them in a spirit of openness and mutual support that was worth being there just to see that.  The event was set up so that we could all share insights and experiences together – in that sense, it was a genuine ‘conference’.  Yes, folks, we really did hear from just about everyone who was there.  A conference where you actually ‘confer’ – that has to be different as well, surely.  We talked endlessly about topics ranging from the Jesus Deck, to angels, the tarot, circle dancing, dream interpretation, crystals – you name it, it probably cropped up somewhere in our conversations.  And that’s without mentioning Ole’s inspirational earth eucharist and his story of how In the Master’s Light came to birth.

As our closer friends will know, we have been engaged with this world for something like 20 years now – maybe a bit more, because it all started when John did a PhD on Gnosticism, and then just snowballed through visits to California, not least Olive’s time spent studying in Berkeley, which is still one of the world centres of all things different and spiritually distinctive.  When we first spoke about it in the UK, many of our more traditional colleagues thought we were mad (some still do – and we’re happy with that!).  But for us it was just so encouraging to be with so many others who have caught this vision – and to see that they did truly represent a very wide spectrum of ages and theological connections and preferences, as well as a good balance of women and men.  We took our cameras with us, but spent so much time talking with people we came home without a single picture between us!

What did we contribute ourselves?  Well, we listened to other people’s stories, and hopefully encouraged a lot of people in their work.  And also shared our own work with crystals and the tarot.  Not to mention experiences with angels.  And also kicked off the first session, and presided together at the closing eucharist.  We need more weekends like that   Steve and Howard – you both did a great job.  And probably under-estimated the significance of your accomplishment.  Because almost certainly it was not actually ‘the first UK conference’ but the first conference of its kind anywhere in the world.

Community building

We did something last week that we almost didn’t believe would be possible: we forgot about computers for a whole seven days!  Not a single email, no blogging, not even formulatig a plan of action for the next big event.  Nothing.  And no, we’re not going backwards in time – just needed to know if we could do it really, or if we were (as some of our friends think) digitally addicted.  So the answer to that is no, we are not: we still know how to talk to each other.  Which might sound a strange thing to say to those of you who haven’t visited our workspace: but in reality we share an office and work within easy physical reach of each other, and yes we do send emails to each other on a more or less regular basis!

As well as spending time doing literally nothing (which was also easier than we might have imagined), we spent some time talking about community building.  Specifically, how easy it is for us all to talk about it but then not do it.  The conversation was sparked off by an email we got a couple of weeks ago, in response to an invitation we had extended to a well-known international Christian leader to spend time hanging out with us during a trip to the north-east of Scotland that is scheduled for mid-June.  We invited him because the last time we met at an over-busy event, the three of us had a conversation that went along the lines of ‘we really should spend time together, maybe work on some mutual projects’.  We naively imagined that an invitation to a free meal (or even a free coffee) might do the trick – but no, we got an email back from this guy’s personal assistant saying he was too busy, too committed, and couldn’t possibly take on anything else (even though, you might imagine, the great and the good do actually need to eat the same as anyone else!).

Our conversation wasn’t about this particular person, rather about the principles.  Talking about community has become a trendy thing to do in recent years.  Doing it seems more challenging.  It’s easy to tell a thousand people they need to go out there and make friends – just very difficult to hang out and do it yourself.  Yet the true test of a Jesus follower is surely always going to be what we do, and how we relate, not what we say in the midst of our busy schedules.  It’s easy to be so immersed in our own schedules and events that we forget that most basic thing of all: that being is more spiritually enriching than constantly doing.

Down the mousehole

After a busy three months, the church mice are taking some time off right now so this blog will be quiet for the next week or so.  But no doubt we’ll have some creative conversations that will give us plenty to blog about once we’re back at the computers.

Easter images

We’ve had visitors staying all week, and on Maundy Thursday we spent a bit of time reflecting on the story of the day.  Started in late afternoon with some fun with stones gathered from the beach earlier in the week, making felt from coloured wools and then covering the stones with it, unpacking and talking about lots of deep stuff in the process.  Then in the course of our evening meal, one of the mice spoke briefly about the Last Supper and we all shared bread and wine together (we being the two church mice, and our guests, a single mum and her two children).  After that, we had a pampering session getting our fingernails cleaned and painted (yes, that did include the male mouse as well!).  Not quite footwashing, but an interesting modern version of it. 

Who is the owner of these pretty fingers?

 Then on Good Friday morning, as we enjoyed breakfast together, we created this installation on the kitchen table. 

Theological Grit

John got an invitation this week to be part of the board that is being set up to oversee the development of Mission-Shaped Ministry, which emanates from the Fresh Expressions initiative of the Church of England and the Methodist Church in the UK.  He couldn’t resist saying yes right away – somewhat to the surprise of Andrew Roberts, who is director of training for Fresh Expressions and who thought he might have to do a bit of persuasion, cajoling, or ecclesiastical arm wrestling first.  But for once (though not for the first time) it was an invitation to something that really matches where the church mice find themselves these days.  What made it a no-brainer though was the explanation that they needed someone who would bring ’theological grit’ into the conversation.

That strikes us as a great image, which apparently we owe to Steven Croft, the new bishop of Sheffield.  Grit can either fly all over the place and blind people, or be the little bit of irritation that gets inside an oyster and forms the basis of a pearl.  Hopefully a contribution from a church mouse will produce pearls.  That’s certainly his aspiration.

A bit of affirmation

We don’t usually use this blog to congratulate ourselves, but this mention is worth highlighting, if only because John is praised for something he usually gets into a lot of trouble over – using things like tarot cards in evangelism.  Nice to know that at least one theological college can see the significance of all this missional stuff.